Kind: captions
Language: en
everyone needs to be heard
and when people are heard they get less
angry so we often talk about haters
and you know the far right
usually is the ones accused of being
haters but i what i've discovered in 30
years of doing couples communication is
that whenever someone is angry that
angry anger is almost always
vulnerability's mask
warren farrell welcome to the show
thank you i'm looking very forward to
being with you
me too so your book the boy crisis and
it'll be great to get a little bit of
your background because you actually
started focused on women's issues and
and really have an incredible pedigree
there uh which helps because i think
this book written by anybody else in
today's climate might not be received
uh as well but i found the book utterly
shocking i had no idea even as a guy
myself i literally had no idea that
there was a boy crisis going on
um
the book is so
dense
with um not only the explanation causes
effect but just the data and so the data
is very very compelling but before we
get into that
give us a little bit of your background
in women's issues and how you ended up
studying uh the things that led to
riding the boy crisis
i was teaching political science at
rutgers university in 1969
and the women's movement began to
surface and um i was really i talked
about it i guess with fire in my belly
my students said
and um and incorporated that into the
course and you know while other people
that was the point in time when the
women's movement was being mocked as you
know a bunch of man-hating lesbians bra
burners etc and i was saying let's take
a different view of this and um but of
course when i took a different view i
took half the class to take the one view
and half the class to agree with that
critique and then of course i would
reverse the people that what was the
view that you had them take oh you know
some people were saying the you know the
the women's movement is just a bunch of
lesbian man haters rob burners so i had
half the class take some version of that
view then half the class take you know
no the woman's movement is an
evolutionary shift it's um you know it's
very powerful it's very important very
needed and then because my one of my
important foci for um
throughout all of my life has been the
importance that that knowing how to
listen to different perspectives is more
important than the rightness of the
wrongness of your perspective so i would
so i then would have
everybody who felt one way and you know
i'd have them shift positions and argue
from the position that they had just
heard and um
and so that was uh but i had you know my
own biases were very supportive of the
women's movement and um but i tried to
always make sure that while those well
that perspective was was articulated
that also that that everyone in the
class who felt differently was given a
respect and and heard very well
why do you think that's so important so
why is listening well more important
than just figuring out that you're right
because the um
everyone needs to be heard
and when people are heard they get less
angry so we often talk about haters um
and you know the far right um usually
it's the ones accused of being haters
but i what i've discovered in 30 years
of doing couples communication is that
whenever someone is angry
that angry anger is almost always
vulnerability's mask
you start understanding and hearing a
person who's angry and just watch their
anger melt
and there's and the more the angrier
they are
the more shocked they are that the per
somebody else can hear them and so the
you know when people write me really
angry letters which is not that often
but when i have gotten them um i write
back an empath you know empathy for what
they're saying and
invariably without a single exception
i've gotten back letters that was we
were like oh wow all right um and then
they start acting like it's almost like
i'm corresponding with two different
people
and so the what i feel
is that you know what we need now is uh
for you know the far right to here that
to be trained in universities to be able
to hear the far left and the far left to
be able to hear the far right and to be
able to sort of say okay i may disagree
with you i may disagree with you 100
but
let me see if i have an accurate
interpretation of what you're trying to
tell me
and if you tell me i don't i'm going to
work on it until you say to me that's
exactly what i meant to impart to you
and then
for me to ask the question am i missing
anything about what you were trying to
tell me
and then
the other person uh working on what i
missed telling me what i missed and me
working on that until the person was
talking says no you didn't miss anything
and so once you do that then somebody
feels safe that did not feel safe before
and you will find that if you have the
courage and guts to do it and you say to
them is there anything else that you'd
like to add the person listening uh the
person who's been articulating with all
this anger
suddenly starts feeling that they start
discovering feelings they hadn't even
known they felt before because for the
first time they felt are safe
articulating these things and they start
discovering deeper and deeper parts of
themselves and they also start to soften
and they open up their heart to being
able to see that they they're not facing
an enemy that they have to fight and
that biologically they have to kill in
order to not be killed
but that biologically that they can uh
that this is a real potential if not
ally
somebody that they can feel at peace
with and feel safe with
and that's so when when anger is present
like that you think that people are in
that level of like this is killer be
killed
this is killer be killed yes so for
example i had a fellow write to me a few
weeks ago
and he said he belonged to 8chan and
4chan and the 8th chan for those who
don't know are people that are usually
alt-right and very
far-right and
a number of the mass shooters like
benton tarrant from christchurch and
other mass shooters have evolved out of
hn
and so here is you know some of them and
he had written a 52-page manifesto he
told me um that he intended to leave
behind after he did his very carefully
planned mass shooting and then he read
the boy crisis and suddenly he said to
me
that he felt understood and seen for the
first time in his life that this was you
know that he in the boy crisis i talk a
lot about
the dad deprived boys and he was dead
deprived and his
mother and his mother's stepmother
grandmother
aunts
were all women without men in their
lives and they all hated men um and so
he saw himself as hateful um and not
being able he had no male role model no
discipline no motivation and so he began
to feel he had
that somebody
that agreed with him
he wanted to have support him and if
4chan and had had a lot of people with
those attitudes and so the only way he
felt he could get hurt and get some
attention
was to um was to do this mass shooting
um and so and then he so he wrote me and
said that you know thank you for the boy
crisis it really has saved not only my
life but the lives of many other people
and so and i said well where did you
hear about me and he said on jordan
peterson so you know i wrote to jordan
to send him a copy of that letter and
jordan and i and another the president
of the
masculinity division of the american
psychological association are all
working with this young man
to give him a sense of purpose and a
sense of being able to connect with uh
with people a sense of discipline a
sense of structure now i don't know how
great it's going to turn out but it's
certainly he is um he's moving in a very
positive direction
and i want to keep him moving that way
and hopefully my ideal is to have him be
able to
step into the hearts and minds of others
that were like what he was and be able
to lead them to a more constructive
understood
and developed and purposeful life
this episode is sponsored by future go
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episode description enjoy the episode
wow uh that's super intense
going back to
this idea of really making sure that
you're listening well that you're
creating a space for the person to be
heard
and it was actually slightly different
than that when you first brought it up
and i think it's really important which
is just that this the different sides of
the argument be heard and understood
and you know the whole concept of steel
manning making sure that you really do
understand what the person is saying
where they're coming from all the nuance
and getting to like you said the point
where they say yes okay now you
completely have that
so i completely understand
in my own life how functional that is to
understand the other side
how do you deal with people who
they're they have such a world view
it's so entrenched that to do that is to
have the very foundations of
their world shaken
potentially begin to crumble
how do you avoid
creating that process
in such a way that it it puts them into
fight or flight because this is where i
see like where people will argue for a
point like from a religious standpoint
as if it were
you know
metaphysically true that they're just
this thing is
and to accept the other side of the
argument would be to accept that you
know the very thing that gives them a
gravitational center is gone
how do you
navigate that
very good question first of all you
don't require it of them
so for example my father when i first
started to do to
always i got some awards for writing and
my father saw that i was tempted to sort
of like make writing a living and he
explained to me that um you know warren
yeah only about 100 people um could um
who write get a publisher and if you
can't get a publisher you'll never get a
wife you can't get a wife you'll never
you'll never um you know have a family
and so this is really um you know don't
go into writing um and then i got my
first couple of contracts and he began
to bend a little bit um but he then said
to me you know why you're ruining the
lives of millions of people
and i said how so and i said i really
don't impact millions of people um you
know that was my
joke to lighten up the situation um but
the
and he goes um well you're teaching
people psychology psychology teaches
people to do what they want to do
not what they need to do and
a real man teaches learns to do not what
he wants to do like write books and say
what you really want um but to to do
what you need to do when you have two or
three children or four children um if
you you know want to be a musician um
great if you're the beatles but if you
haven't gotten to that level the chances
are you're not going to make enough
money to support yourself
give your wife the option to be fully
involved with the children if she needs
to be
if the children have problems you won't
have the money to
take care of that you won't have the
money to buy a home in a decent
neighborhood with a decent school so man
up basically and man up means you know
sort of do what you need to do don't
focus on that and don't teach other
people to focus on it teach people to
focus on what they need to do not what
they want to do
and so
i had to just hear his perspective
and i um and i would hear various
versions of that for a while um when he
got angry i would interpret that as he
loved me and that's you know and this
was his vulnerability feeling that i was
charting a whole different course that
he felt was not what a real man should
do
and so um i i but after it took me four
or five years of just hearing my
father's perspective to
for my father to loosen and it took one
other thing too i i articulated his best
intent
meaning that i i shared with him
that first i knew that he was critiquing
me in a way so that i didn't have
achilles heals in the world that i was
that i was not going to be defeated now
that i'd and that i overcame if he if if
i did it my way that i had considered
all the obstacles that were likely to
defeat me number one number two i said
to him dad you know your generation was
the generation that um you focused on
you were born in 1910 i know that by the
time you were 35 you'd been through two
world wars in a depression
and so um and but your generation
created the ability to survive that has
led me and my generation to be able to
do more than just focus on survival
but to focus on some combination of
survival and fulfillment you have given
me that privilege your generation has
given me that privilege
and so i really want to honor you and
also
know that that my taking advantage of
of combining fulfillment with
sustainability is something that i honor
you for and your generation for and that
softened him enormously so what i did
but did it change his mind because
here's one of the things that i found
most interesting about the boy crisis um
i had never before thought about the
fact that evolution has given
men a role
that is really i don't know if you'd say
baked into our genes or just so deeply
implanted into the subconscious of the
culture but that like hey part of
why men are here is they're disposable
that they're meant to defend us to die
for us to do all the difficult things
and
uh that
our sort of compensation as a society
for that is
the hero
and that you're worshiped and
everybody's gonna think you're cool but
the reality is you're gonna die you're
gonna die in service of us and what is
really interesting to me warren is i'm
not kidding like two days ago i gave my
wife a speech my eyes were watering i
needed to be understood because
um there's this this big thing growing
between my wife not not growing it's a
really important issue that we haven't
solved yet that we have to solve which
is the following it came about because
will smith said that like he did all of
the all of the hard work all of that so
that he could build this big incredible
beautiful house for his family and his
wife said no you did that for yourself
and and that to me was like a knife in
my own heart and my wife is like isn't
that crazy because she totally
identified with his wife and i'm like
what i'm like that's so true and she was
like no it's not like you don't
understand i don't need that that's not
what this is about and i'm like stop
i'm like you need to understand and i
had this was before i read your book
i'm like i need you to understand
that i see myself as standing with a
sword in my [ __ ] hand and i have to
slay the things that are coming at you
and in that there is so much power for
me to be defending you to fight for you
to build this for you to do it for
myself is
it like if
and this is embarrassing but is true
if my wife is in the house and you know
the alarm goes off or i think there
might be an intruder i don't have fear i
[ __ ] run straight towards it if i'm
alone i have fear there's something
about knowing that i'm there to protect
her i've rehearsed the idea of dying for
her hopefully killing everybody instead
but like being in that situation over
and over and over and over and
for her to be like well i don't care
it's it's unnerving and and like sort of
devastating in a way where i i said to
her i was like hey i need to understand
your side i need to figure out where
you're coming from but this is one of
those sayings don't just brush off as if
it doesn't matter that oh i'm just being
macho i'm like there's something
way foundational here in terms of how i
perceive myself and what it means to be
a man and what my duties are all that
and then of course i read the boy crisis
i'm like oh my god like this is
literally i i had never thought about it
in an that that it is truly a thing that
like guys have this role
in society from an evolutionary
standpoint like we we imbibe upon it so
going back to your dad
knowing that this role is like a real
thing did you change his mind is there
changing one's mind on this or is this
so ingrained in us
that
it just is
it did slowly pain or his mind did
slowly change and it began but it's the
emphasis on slowly
and the emphasis on for four or five
years i pretty much did nothing but
heard his point of view
and when he felt that the articulation
of his point of view
had been absorbed by me when i when i
let him know here's what i heard you say
is that correct dad
and he go no well
mostly but here's a problem with it and
then i kept working on it until he
didn't feel i had distorted anything and
he didn't
feel i had missed anything and i gave
him space to add things but you know
this is four or five years and during
that four or five years i did not know
for sure that it would ever turn around
and in a way i had given up the need for
it to turn around i only gave up the
need for my father to feel i i focused
on the need for my father to feel loved
my father to feel hurt my father to feel
like he was doing right by being able to
have me absorb what he wanted to impart
to me
and so that was you know an end slowly
during that period of time fortunately
you know by the time he was in his 90s
he lived to 99 i always felt blessed
that he lived that long because it you
know it took that long to
make the turn around and so
but all of this is really very much
related to um
to
the understanding of disposability that
you were getting at well first of all
the understanding that that the first
job in my couples communication courses
in a case like this would be to have you
completely
first of all it's usually true
that a woman is not going to hand um
hear a man until she first
feels heard our protector instinct
allows us to hear her first more easily
than it does for
her to hear us first if it's a different
point of view so that's interesting
which is interesting by itself um but
but even with lesbian couples and so on
or gay uh gay males straight males or
parents and children it doesn't make
that much difference who starts being to
be heard
as long as both are really convinced
that they will be heard so the first
step is um
is would be in your case let's say you
um totally
altering your biological mindset which
would be when you hear something that
you disagree with to begin to
form ideas and thoughts that you can
add share uh either interrupt with or if
you don't interrupt hold it
to yourself and you begin to mentally do
what i call self-listening
while um your wife is talking so i have
every couple in my workshops um i have
let's say the mail started out by
um it's altering
his biologically natural state to defend
or um and to and to i do that with
creating six mindsets that the person
listening
meditates into
so that you move from wanting to
hear your
wanting to argue with your partner's
perspective
to knowing that if you create a safe
environment for your partner's
perspective
that your partner will feel heard more
safe more loved
and therefore more love for you
i also work with each couple to ask them
that i ask a question
if you were to um
find that your partner was a hundred
percent likely to die but you knew that
you could you know jump in and save her
um and have but you have a 50 chance of
dying yourself but 100
chance of saving her if you do jump in
would you do it virtually every male in
the room says yes about 90 of the women
in the room say yes they would do that
for their partner 50 chance of dying so
my first thing that i ask is that you
know if if you can die be willing to die
to give your partner life
can you listen
to give your partner life
and it puts the listening into such
perspective i mean here people are
coming and some of them about a quarter
of the people in my workshops are this
is the they've heard about you know the
couple's chorus they they've come
oftentimes overseas to to go to it and
still
um they're you know they're wanting to
defeat their partner um and so this is
like a you know a total turnaround for
them but when their partner feels heard
their their attitude toward them begins
to soften and change quite considerably
and then they're ready to hear um their
their partner's
perspective on on life and it's more
complex than that but it's um it's a
structure that i've created to be able
to have everyone be able to hear each
other
including you know the the alt-right
with the um with the uh left if you will
all right i want to get back to some of
the frames around
the disposability of men how that came
to be
um
how did that come to be i mean hearing
you say that it was like so cold
it's uh
it's inverting the sort of hero complex
of like instead of looking at the reward
that men get for being disposable you
just look at the cold hard fact of like
all right we're gonna
throw you at the problem yes so what
what does what is the disposability of
men and where does it come from
it comes evolutionarily
almost all animals are the male is
disposable and the female is protected
by the male and the female selects the
alpha male so even let's say among um
buck elks um
the uh the female um is
she chooses the buck elk with the
longest rat the biggest rack
but in order to get that big rack
the buck elk has to
exhaust about 30 percent of its
nutrients minerals
and um and calcium and so the the
what creates him
to be able to be selected by her for
sexuality and for reproduction
is exactly what is making him most
vulnerable the loss of thirty percent of
his nutrients minerals and calcium and
so
the uh the bucket of elk has to get rid
rid of the rack immediately after
procreation otherwise he is likely to
die
from a lack of nutrition before the
winter sets in
so what the buck elk is doing is in
order to make himself eligible for love
or sex
he has to um
he has to appear the strongest
but be the weakest
and so one of the things i discussed in
the boy crisis in other books is that
men's weakness is our facade of strength
his buff his rack was his facade of
strength but it was also his weakness
really fast why wouldn't it have made
more sense from an evolutionary
standpoint for it to be real strength
that
if a slightly smaller antler size
actually means that you can fight better
then why wouldn't that get selected for
it seems impossible to believe that
unless having a rack that big actually
made you a better fighter it's just a
very short window in which you can fight
um
it doesn't seem like it should be
selected for am i crazy that's that's a
good argument and i think uh and i think
that the basic experience is that the
the woman needs the protection the most
from other
males that are weaker that would like to
procreate with her and the ma the male
with the biggest rack can either inhibit
or fight off any um any um suitors that
are coming onto her and also protect her
during the pregnancy but then he has to
get rid of that immediately um in order
to be able to to live himself or he
doesn't live himself and he dies for her
and
translating that into human terms every
generation you've heard you know has it
has its war or wars
and um and basically we we tell men
um that you will be um
a hero the the telling men you'll be the
hero if you fight in that war and are
willing to die in that war does a number
of things
one is the it can be looked at as a
social bribe
that you will be respected uh uncle joe
is his picture is on the mantle he
fought in the marines in world war ii he
died he's a hero he's honored by
everybody in his family boy 12 years old
often criticized by mom and dad
disciplined maybe feeling like he's not
that great at school
and other kids mock him but if he joins
the marines and and even if he dies
he'll be thought of as a hero like uncle
joe and so these social bribes to be
disposable do two things to parents on
the one hand the parent wants the boy to
live
on the other hand they want the boy to
be that hero like uncle joe
and so the boy is getting mixed messages
about his own disposability uh but that
his own does the the risk of just being
disposable is is what will make him a
man and so then then he starts seeing
with women that women are falling in
love with the um
uh with the with the provider and the
protectors they're falling in love with
the officer and the gentleman not the
private and the pacifist
and so they they notice through
thousands of different views
they see lois lane
not having any interest whatsoever in
clark kent
but once she finds out that clark kent
is really superman then she's all
interested then she tries to say to
superman oh you should be able to cry
but she wasn't interested in superman at
all who was clark kent who was crying
who is sensitive who is not caring and
so this is deeply built into our
evolutionary genetics and and if it
wasn't uh we'd all be under nazi rule
and um you know and we wouldn't have
conquered the native americans so all
you know uh and and other um people that
were living on the land that they owned
as a result of our the programming of
all our males to be willing to be able
to to die for what um gave additional
resources to our women to our children
and to other males and so and the ones
that did that the best were what we call
the heroes the ones we celebrated and so
every male when your wife says you know
you are doing that for yourself she's
not right and she's not wrong meaning
that she's that you that
there was a part of you and i
that wanted to be the hero
and there was a part of you and i that
were willing to be disposable in order
to protect her and those all blend
together and so the the the boy crisis
what i found is that the boys who did
not
the boys who were part of the boy crisis
um that the basically that the boy
crisis resides where dads do not reside
and when i first submitted the the um
proposal for the boy crisis to the my
publisher i had 10 sections of of
different causes of the boy crisis all
about equal but the more i started to
study it the more i realized that yes
the boy that was raised by a single mom
and went into a school that had very few
male teachers
that boy was in trouble
had a very high percentage chance of of
being vulnerable to to getting seduced
by gangs or by um or by drug dealers
to be part of their gang and to have a
different family so to speak and so but
the boy who was raised by both a dad and
a mom or an involved dad and an an
involved mom that that boy even if he
went into a school with very few male
teachers um did not usually get into
trouble
and so that the power of having an
involved dad
was more important for the average boy
than the power of a male teacher alone
so male teachers are important but they
are not sufficient
what is it about so one of the things i
found interesting in in the boy crisis
is this very clear picture that there is
a difference between men and women sort
of in in the innate way that they
interact the innate way that they raise
a child
the different
tools that they bring and one thing i'm
fascinated by just in general is
in society it seems like people think
that there is one way to do something
right and that seems to be leading to
this just like absolute madness whereas
i think a healthier view is to
understand that nature's given us this
dichotomy whether it's right and left
whether it's male female
because the friction between the two
produces these incredible results but
that you actually need the mother and
father sort of pulling in these you know
slightly different directions left and
right you need people pulling between
progressivism and conservatism and that
either one going off in their own
directions becomes problematic but the
two personality types
working in concert is really what ends
up giving you the good result so
in the book you talk about you know look
dad's just sort of come at this in a
certain way women tend to come at it in
a in a different way uh and so even
though
a mother could just be absolutely
working her magic and doing everything
that she can do and even if there were
two mothers working that
it still doesn't solve you don't still
get that friction so one if you think
that that's a fair breakdown of what you
cover in the book i'd love to understand
what are the
i don't want to say immutable roles
because you do a good job in the book of
talking about look there are other ways
to explore
this and we'll get to that but this sort
of prototypical
middle of the road guy father approaches
it this way the stereotypical middle of
the road mother approaches it this way
what are those two things and what's the
value that they bring and why is it that
we discard one to our own peril
yes absolutely very very important
question so i'll do a conclusion first
and then go back into it slowly
the um
the children that do the best are the
ones that have an involved
biological mom and dad i'll talk later
about why biological and um but the
end that that mother and father
discuss with each other
their the the best intent of their
different
parenting styles dad style parody and
mom style parenting so the end up with
what i would call sex and balance
parenting and the uh where the mother
but the most important part of checks
and balance parenting is both people
have to listen with respect to the best
intent of the other person's parenting
so for example
um typically um when
let's say you have three children and
the three children um and the dad is
more likely to go okay kids three of you
just get on the couch and jump on my
back and you know the three of you
here's the game the three of you pin me
down first or i pin the three of you
together down first all right daddy
we'll do it we'll do it you know and mom
was looking on going oh my god i feel
like i have just one more child to
monitor here and stuff
and but she's saying i don't want to be
controlling the kids seems like they're
having a lot of fun but i just feel fear
that sooner or later somebody's gonna
get uh get get end up getting hurt
well the mom is only about 99 likely to
be right um so that you know the rough
housing goes on and the um and sooner or
later somebody starts crying and mom
goes oh no i feel guilty now i should
have got i should have interfered i
should have paid attention to my
instincts um now you know gionee has
gotten hurt um and dad goes okay you
know um jim you can't take your uh jimmy
you can't take your um elbow and you
stick it in your sister's eyes um so
that's not if you do that again i'll
have to stop the rough housing okay dad
okay yeah i won't do anything like that
again so five minutes later the breath
housing continues and jimmy doesn't
stick the elbow in his sister's eyes but
he's really aggressive to his other
brother and the dad says you know you uh
you're too aggressive ready we're
stopping the rough housing for tonight
and mom is going oh finally dad gets the
point he's stopping the rough housing
but he said she says he just said
tonight well he's saying tomorrow night
he's going to continue the rough housing
he hasn't learned his lesson now that
the children get hurt every time they do
that and dad says to you know the the
one boy he said you know very well that
that was too aggressive that you were
pushing your your sister out i didn't
stick my elbow in my sister's eye like
you told me not to
you still knew well enough that that was
too aggressive you do that again no more
rough housing um and so that tomorrow
night comes and
because but because the rough housing
has stopped
that night when this when the when the
initial warning was not heated to the
dad's degree of satisfaction
now the children have in mind a
different a different um phenomenon
when mom tells me to stop roughhousing
to being so rough
and i don't pay attention to mom mom
just repeats what she says
maybe a little bit more forcefully
whereas dad took away what we really
wanted the roughhousing
and so the next night when the dad
says you know what to not do and what to
do now and the children
absorb that more fully because they
don't want to lose what they really want
which is the rough housing whereas with
mom they didn't think they would lose
what they really wanted you so we can
ignore what mom says it's only going to
be repeated for dad we lose what we want
the rough housing so what no one gets
from that is that with the children and
so and
moms don't get it because dads don't
tell moms dads don't get it because this
is not in any parenting magazine or
parenting book and so when i found out
these things i felt this was really what
i needed to communicate in the boy
crisis and so what the father
didn't understand
articulate to mom
was that when he requires the child to
not be aggressive he's teaching the
child the difference between being
aggressive versus assertive
he's also teaching the child postpone
gratification and postpone gratification
is the most important single predictor
of success or failure and the postponed
gratification in that example is that
the child wants to win at the rough
housing and push his sister or brother
aside to win
but knows now that it's going to lose
what it really wants which is the the
continuation of the rough housing so it
has to postpone the gratification of
pushing sister or brother aside to get
the gratification of more rough housing
now that postponed gratification when
it's taken to um let's say
school and the child who learns postpone
gratification can maybe be in the middle
of doing homework get an invitation to
play a video game that's brand new and
just up
and the um and instead of saying yes
i'll play says
can respond only when i finish my
homework the kid that is recognizes
having a special gift like maybe is tall
and can play basketball or is a good
actor or a good musician or someone or a
great singer and is beginning to but
wants to be let's say an olympic gymnast
and the father makes it clear that yes
you could be an olympic gymnast and we
will support you to do that i'll take
you to your gymnastic events i'll pay
for tutoring but if you don't follow
through and do your homework i'm no
longer going to continue my support for
you to do that and mom may go oh you're
being really mean
she's trying as hard as she can
dad goes no i don't think she is trying
as hard as she can um and if we're going
to do all the support on her and she has
to follow through and she has to know
that if she's not willing to sacrifice
this party and that you that activity
for for fun or go to go to this place or
that she'll never have the discipline to
become that olympic gymnast um and so
that tends so the boundary enforcement
tends to be much more something that
dads are comfortable with moms are more
likely to tune into
the fact that the child's had a tough
day that maybe if there's a divorce that
the child is a victim of the divorce and
therefore i'm not going to get into a
big argument over you know
making something harder on the child
when she she or he has been
had a tough day and whereas dad says i
want the long-term
i want my child to be
um
seeing herself as able to master what
she or he her dream or his dream is uh
that will give the child the more
long-term gratification
how much pushback do you get when you um
describe it in these ways that
you know one i have a feeling that even
if you're right about the result of um
rough housing that most ads are
literally just roughhousing like they're
not they're not necessarily thinking
about it in some sort of grand way to
bring their kids up it's just fun and
you roughhouse um
and then you know for women to be like
really attuned to the emotional state
and therefore their boundaries are much
softer um
do people push back on that or is that
like yeah no even people that disagree
with you are like okay that part yeah i
get
people have had children the normal
response is oh my god that's us you know
instead of like um and and um and i 100
agree with the perspective that dads
don't articulate those things which is
why i say that moms can't hear what dads
don't say
and i also don't blame dads because dads
can't say what they don't read about so
the dads can't don't
don't necessarily see all those
connections
um but they just intuitively tend to do
that and so the the other differences
and moms tend to intuitively do that and
so um so for example the mom and dad uh
if the dad says
um
it's you know you can um the child says
can i climb the tree in the backyard and
mom will tend to say well maybe sweetie
in a few few years but you're too young
to do that right now dads will say well
okay but be careful um and mom will go
see it say what are you saying to the
child that she or he can climb that tree
they could fall there's a concrete
underneath that they could get a
concussion or get a spinal cord injury
or they could die um you're just putting
our child's life at risk and so mom and
dad have what i call the the checks and
balance parenting and if they do that do
that mom says okay
they can climb the tree but only up to
this level do you agree with that and
not on these types of branches and that
you've got to be under the tree to be
able to capture uh catch the child if
she or he falls and by the way give me
your cell phone so you focus on the
children not on the cell phone and so
dad then agrees if the dad agrees to
that the child has gotten this that dad
never says but here's what the child's
gotten the child's gotten an increasing
iq
because what we don't read about is that
that child taking the risks and
assessing what risk is safe what is not
fires synapses in the brain that
increases the brain's capacity and iq
but these things are not common
knowledge and so this and so what i say
to dad's is you've really got to know
what you're doing intuitively
and what the data is behind these things
because this hasn't been studied we
think of mom as having a natural
mothering instinct
and that is true but what no one talks
about is that when a father is involved
with a child from the moment there is
conception of touching the cha the
mother's tummy of being at the hospital
with the child of um perceiving himself
as having an active
involvement in the child's life
that had synapses in that dad's brain
form that are dormant until that child
is born
and those synapses begin firing and form
a second
brain level
that is very similar to the motherhood
instinct but with different you can
actually see it on a brain scan you
could actually see it on the brain scan
and this is these are things we didn't
know about until just five six years ago
um and what are those the the second
brain that's forming
uh what what is its design connection
bonding
uh something else yes uh all the things
that are sort of natural to a dad but
that the dad perceives as his role of
protecting even though he doesn't know
that it's necessarily leading to that
the primary thing that's happening is
protect care for be involved
but some dads when the child is born say
okay i've got to give up being an
elementary school teacher
i've got to start to move us into and
make more money i've got to be the
principal of the school i've got to be a
superintendent of schools i've got to um
give up teaching and education all
together make more money selling product
is that just social or what creates that
push
it's both social and um and
um
and biological i mean the the instinct
to protect is in every animal from you
know tiny little ants
right up to human beings at the for the
mail to protect setting goals is
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all right guys take care and be
legendary peace so as that second brain
is forming it's it's amping up that
already natural impulse to
protect you start looking okay if i'm
the financials provider then i need to
ratchet this up which then of course
takes them
away and so that you get back to that
disposable idea of for me to
be a good father i have to be away from
the family and for the mother to be a
good mother she has to be deeper in the
family
um
how does that begin to feed into the boy
crisis
in a very important way so the father
that perceives that the most important
thing is
income and i have to quit all my jobs
that do not produce much money musician
artist writer
as you know sort of elementary school
teacher and take jobs that require not
only more money but if if i'm the local
sales person of product x um and
that that i can make twice as much money
being the national sales person for
product x but i'm going to be away from
the family more frequently and so that
becomes what i call the father's cash 22
the dad learns to love his family by
being away from the love of his family
and so what i discuss in the boy crisis
is
that's
okay
until your family depending on where you
live in the united states is earning
somewhere between 60 and 80 000 dollars
a year
once you're earning about that amount of
money
the amount of time dad's time
is more important than dad's dime if you
will
and so
the uh and so that the the
the and that brain the nurturing
instinct the nurturing part of the brain
fires more when dad perceives that his
that his time is valued more than his
time if his if if he perceives that he's
got to go out and pre you know provide a
half million dollars or whatever a year
then he starts moving into more of a
producer and even though he's doing all
of that to love his children
he's also learning skill sets that are
the opposite of love so for example a
really top ceo
when listening to say a sales person say
this new engine will be best for your
boeing uh aircraft and the
the top ceo has got a while that sales
person of selling uh engine x
is talking he he or she has got to be
thinking okay is this salesperson the
most um credible um do if i if i do
believe that do i have the
infrastructure in china and these other
places to implement this anyway um what
what would i have to do as an infant you
know a dozen
questions that he is thinking in his or
her mind's eye when the salesperson is
talking so that's very functional for
being a good ceo but that ceo comes home
and while his wife or children are
talking if he is not listening fully to
them but rather is tapped into okay what
is the error in which
she uh what what they're talking about
my wife is having a problem how do i
solve the problem
one of the biggest mistakes that ceo
types make
is is using their skill sets as a ceo to
solve their wife's problem which only
makes their wife on a subtle level feel
like it's dumber um like if you
we have to talk about this one so uh
this is i'm sure the biggest problem in
a lot of couples uh marriages and
certainly this was has been an issue in
mine
and
forever my wife and i just decided okay
uh
tell me straight up do you just want me
to listen or do you want me to solve the
problem so that i can just come into
this because my natural instinct is
definitely to solve the problem and then
i heard a piece of information i would
love to know if you know if you can
verify this that uh one thing that
estrogen does
is make emotions feel okay so that
feeling
sad hurt disappointed whatever is far
more acceptable for my wife than it is
for me so i see my wife in distress
it then puts me in distress and i'm not
prepared to stay there so i'm like i can
solve this problem let's go it makes her
not feel heard or listened to but
because it is so uncomfortable for me to
see her in that state to then feel that
myself i'm like what are we doing like
why would we not solve this problem this
seems crazy
so
is that
true about estrogen is it because
if it is true
that that feeling that the feeling is
intense
but it's like pain and suffering she has
the pain but she's not suffering from
the pain whereas i'm experiencing the
pain and i'm suffering from it
have you heard that about estrogen that
it makes those feelings feel okay
i have and here's what i think every
woman and every man can understand
is that when a woman is
or a man but particularly a woman
first of all i'm going to talk about
this to the women from the the men's
perspective so you can understand the
men's intent then i'm going to reverse
it okay
so from the um
from the man's perspective
he would die
to
to save you
he um when you when anything is wrong
for you
from his perspective
it is cruel to let my wife bleed
and not to put on the best band-aid
possible
she is everything to me
she is what um and so
the second icu bleed i naturally want to
put that band-aid on and i want to put
the aloe vera and then the band-aid then
hold you and do everything that you need
to be protected from pain
that's his best intent
guys
when your wife or a woman friend is
expressing her feelings
just let her the best thing you can do
you can solve the problem you can
protect her
the way to solve the problem and the way
to protect her is by hearing her through
and hearing her out
that is the solution
so you have to reformulate
your
the the method you use to protect
why why is that what she needs
well
i can give you an intellectual
estrogen-based science explanation yes
please
but
first just try to hear
that it is
just it is what she needs
um and the and that the ceos that i've
worked with that have
that have really seen
that that have changed in their mind
what the definition of solving the
problem is
that there is a way of solving the
problem and the way is just to hear her
out and to let her completely
my wife is
extraordinary woman
and she runs in her own company and
very many nights she spends 45 minutes
to an hour talking straight
about the problems she's had that day
with the company and how it's made her
feel and how she hurts she feels about
it um just today there was this morning
at breakfast there was that that that
came up and so
my job
is to just hear her out
and then when i do it the best and i
don't always do it this way when i do it
the best to sort of uh instead of
formulating the the
my solutions in my mind's eye
just when she's finished oftentimes
she's just relaxed and she's different
but other times she says you know do you
have any thoughts
when i'm at my best almost always i jump
in with my thoughts
that i have been formulating in my mind
but while trying to listen to her but
when i do it my best i say i do have
some thoughts but do you have any more
thoughts
and i and almost invariably she comes up
she begins now to work on solutions
and she's prouder of herself when she
can begin to both feel heard
relieved and relieved and relaxed and
now she has the bandwidth to come up
with her own solutions and so now who is
our hero
she is her own hero how have i become
her hero i become her hero by helping
her become her own hero
what's the reverse
when when you're upset and talking do
you just want her to solve the problem
do you also want her to hold space for
you
what's that that flip side i want her to
hold space for me
but that creates a conflict inside of me
that every woman needs to understand
the fear inside of me is that if i start
crying and complaining that i'll be seen
as clark kent and not superman and she
fell in love with superman
and so um and so i
so part of what the couple's
communication work that i do about is is
to be able for me to be able to say
here's what i fear when i share my real
fears that are underlying that i fear
that you will feel like i don't i'm not
the competent um solve it all person
that you know that you saw on tv that
you saw um you know that you saw being
so masterful that you see leading
couples workshops and everybody you know
saying wow what a phenomenon um that
you'll see the real me which has lots of
fears and feelings of you know and thing
insecurities and so on and that you will
unfall in love with me that you'll fall
out of love with me and as she's seen
that
then she as as she's been able to hear
that fully from me she's able to say to
me she's able to see the greater amount
of courage
that is behind my willingness to be
vulnerable
and the power that she has to be able to
facilitate me in a way
that
she says inside of herself
i am really helping him
by having understanding that men do feel
these vulnerabilities they're just
afraid to articulate them and i'm
helping him become a healthier man and
this is true in every man
it's just that my husband has the guts
to be able to say it and he has the guts
to say it because he knows that he won't
lose my love that that's what i
explained to her
in when when it's my turn to talk and be
heard in what i call caring and sharing
exercises that i do with a couple's
communication courses but now here's the
real question do women fall in love with
the superman like you go into the book
there's yeah there's some like
uncomfortable truths to be faced here
yeah they answer
three answers to that
yes
and yes
and
that's like in real estate it's location
location location and that's the
challenge and so
men women do fall in love with the
superman so women have you know men have
to have the
the guts
well first of all you have to know how
to explain how how to create this
structure
of each person being able to listen to
each other and know that when you do
hear the person's real underlying
feelings uh that and especially if they
involve criticisms of you
you um have to be able to know how to
handle that criticism without falling in
love without falling into what is
biologically natural which is to be
defensive what i mean by that is
historically speaking and biologically
speaking if you heard a criticism of you
you felt that it was an
enemy uh enemy of your kinship network
and enemy of your neighborhood and you
so you biologically built up your
defenses to be able to defend against
the past possible enemy or conversely
you um you try to figure out how to kill
your enemy before your enemy killed you
so it was biologically functional for
survival
for everyone to become defensive
but it's biologically dysfunctional for
love
to be defensive to your partner's
perspectives and criticisms and concerns
and so
what i do in the couples communication
workshops is i have people
alter
their biologically natural propensity to
be defensive because
when
you're completely not defensive and
you're open to whatever your partner
says or feels even if it's completely
filled with criticism for you and even
if it's shouted at you and even if
there's exaggerated truths and even if
it's a lie
uh that that that being able to hear
your partner's
perspective and then also understand
that the exaggerations and the lies are
their way are their way of calling your
attention away from your everyday life
into paying more attention to what
they need needed to be by exaggerating
it or
raising their voice but the second they
start realizing that you will provide
complete safety for their perspective
there's no reason to shout there's no
reason to exaggerate there's no reason
to lie
oh okay so
going back to this idea they're they're
falling in love with superman
um
putting it back into the context of the
boy crisis so we have something really
gnarly going on
we have a
removal of the father it has all these
knock-on effects in terms of delayed
gratification in terms of boundary
setting discipline
um
but there's also
something interesting you talk about in
the book where
you know we put a lot of time and
attention rightly so on making sure that
women have more options
but as we've created these more options
for women we have failed to do the same
thing for boys and in fact largely just
dismiss that boys are potentially having
a problem and to contextualize in what
you've just been saying we already have
these natural proclivities that are sort
of pulling us in these opposite
directions
and
so now
like taking a you know
somebody a mature male but young where
they're on the dating scene they're
trying to find a spouse
who has a potential spouse who has more
and more options they have less and less
how does this begin to play out in
reality how do dating apps enter into
this you know it feels like we're
getting i've never had to deal with
dating apps but you know you hear these
terrifying statistics about a very small
handful of guys just getting laid
nonstop and then a huge swath of guys
they're not even trying because it just
seems like a game they can't win
and so
yeah help me contextualize as we have
rightly given more options to women what
have we failed to do to men and how's
that playing out in in mate finding
yes first of all your analysis is
exactly correct uh in my opinion and
it's exacerbated by um i was being
interviewed for a documentary um a few
months ago and i was talking about boys
and what they learned in school and at
the time it was we were being
interviewed in sort of a
little island in the middle of a creek
and a guy was uh walking um
looked like a teenage guy
was walking by
and i was i was just talking about what
teenage guys think and i'm thinking i'm
not a teenage guy pull this guy in
random guy off the thing i told him what
we were doing i said are you willing to
be interviewed with the recognition that
you know you could you're you can run it
by your parents we won't do anything
with it until you know and he said yeah
yeah no problem and um i and so we
interview him and he i said you know
um in school what do you learn about
girls and what do you learn about guys
and he says
well we learned that the future is
female
um and that guys are usually um
people who are sort of you know do you
know a lot of date raping and sexual
harassment and that we really you know
better be very very cautious
and so i said well you know do you um do
you hear other good things about guys or
bad things about guys oh yeah we learned
that you know the men of the oppressors
and women of the oppressed and that
we've been you know we learned about the
patriarchy and how the patriarchy is
part of that oppression
and so he goes on and all the list of
things that i talk about in the boy
crisis he's sort of saying are going on
in school today but he's hearing them
this guy turns out to be in the 10th
grade and so he's hearing them you know
in high school not in college uh this is
this is ubiquitous in almost every
college um this perspective um but he's
hearing this in high school and he said
he's already been hearing it for a few
years uh he turns out to be in a private
all-male school
his friends his friends are mostly in
public schools and they hear the same
thing but even in an all male school
he's learning that men of the oppressors
the sexual harassers now that the future
is female so i said well if the future
is female how does that make you feel
about your future kind of depressed he
said um and so
this is the um and then uh when he
thinks about having sex he sort of sees
that some of the guys that have sex are
very assertive guys
but he's afraid that if he's assertive
he could be considered a sexual harasser
or a worst case scenario date rapist in
california where i live that happens to
be the law but in and then 26 states
it's becoming the law and the other 26
you know 24 states it's not but at any
rate the um
this boy is experiencing all those
negative attitudes about himself but
he's not only afraid of moving too
quickly he's also afraid of moving
sexually too slowly because if he moves
too slowly he knows he'll be called a
wimp if he loses
if he moves too quickly he's a sexual
harasser and i said did you ever think
about um the fact that that it would be
wonderful if girls were being trained or
socialized to be the ones to share the
risks of sexual rejection so it isn't
just all on the guise to do the
predominant risk and he said well some
girls do that um and he's
but he's then as we talked about it he
said well it's true that those girls
only do that with the guys that are out
of reach they don't do that in general
uh with with the average with the
average guys um and so
we and but if we really were to increase
our respect for women
we would not just have women
define victimhood in whatever way is in
they don't feel comfortable with that is
doing too much aggression or not enough
uh assertiveness
but we would be asking women to share
the responsibility
for risking rejection that is now
predominantly on male shoulders
women can do it by women have the
permission to do it but they do it by
option not by expectation
and so guys are saying all right where
can i have access to a variety of
attractive women
without fear of rejection at a price i
can afford
oh
pornography i can have access to a
variety of attractive women without fear
of rejection at a price i can afford
the problem with pornography is that one
tends to get addicted to it
and the and when you first see a woman
your 14 year old boy take off all her
clothes
that's a real turn on
but then if you see it 30 or 40 times
you need something a bit more exciting
and then a bit more exciting and then a
bit more exciting and before you know it
some you know at some point a woman
seems to be open to coming over to your
house or wherever and beginning to make
the possibility of making love but if
you're addicted to these
you know
doing things that the woman is going to
be uncomfortable
save her euphemism
then the woman feels treated like a you
know pornography object and the reason
she feels that way is she is because she
is being treated as an object in
pornography because that's the only
thing that you learn to turn yourself on
with and so these are the dilemmas that
are built in to the system today and
what so the big question that you were
asking from my perspective is why warren
you know why have we opened up all these
doors for women and opened up almost
none of these doors for men because part
of the the mistake that i and other
feminists made right at the beginning
when i was on the board of directors of
the national organization for women in
new york city and speaking all around
the world on women's issues is we made
the assumption that we lived in a
patriarchal world that
in which men made the rules to benefit
men at the expense of women nothing
could be farther from the truth what we
lived in was a world that was dominated
not by patriarchy but by a need to
survive
and in order to survive
men were restricted to playing roles
that required them to be willing to be
disposable
women were restricted to playing roles
that required them to risk disposability
in childbirth so we we asked both sexes
to play roles that required obligations
and responsibilities
rather than freedom and rights and
opportunities like like we talked about
at the beginning with my father and so
that has to be understood by the culture
but we have this natural instinct to
protect women and therefore create
freedoms for them
and to not want men to complain without
looking at them
with disgust or with at least pity
and sort of
and so that's the next evolutionary
shift we have to make
is boys having father involvement to be
able to get discipline to be able to be
productive and then also having the the
the guts to speak up and say what they
need and they want and risk being
rejected by women when i dated between
marriages
i
put all this on the table hopefully not
in this length
on my first date and i could see that
some of my
potential sexual evenings were
disappearing but i ended up
finding a woman who could really hear me
and but was also a powerful woman and
and so you end up
getting what you really want by not
being a victim of your need to have sex
that evening
i'm so curious now so what exactly were
you putting on the table what were you
saying but i was saying things like just
what i'm saying here but much more
abbreviated versions of it so i listened
as much as i talked and you know hearing
different you know hearing a different
perspective but i didn't want to um and
you know in saying things like you know
i feel that
part of being
a man who believes in women being strong
and also men being strong is that we
will you know that i will not be paying
for the dates um and you won't be paying
for the dates we'll either be sharing
that or i'll pay for this
this tonight and if you care enough
about us you either pay for me the next
time or make dinner for me um either way
um and so um and how did that land
because in the book you give stats that
it's still pretty like most guys think
they're supposed to pay and most women
also think guys are supposed to pay yes
exactly and that is true 82 i think of
guys feel women should pay in 70 70 some
odd percent of women feel that men
should pay and it usually went over well
because you know my life is being able
to explain this and to explain to her
how this is to her advantage in the long
run and when and what what it's to her
advantage because she is maintaining
autonomy
or
yes she's maintaining autonomy that it
shows i have respect for her uh that she
doesn't have to uh she yeah i'm
that i'm not buying her uh her time that
i have respect for myself um that when i
pay for a date and
all the dates and she doesn't but it's
basically saying i'm compensating for my
inequality my insecurity is is operating
here i feel i need to pay for you in
order to be worthy of your love that's
really coming from an insecure place
and um the you know and so
when she sees that she goes oh wow uh
but you know i have my life is you know
being able to explain that and so you
know one of the things i ask men to do
is you know if you want to see whether a
woman is a keeper or not you give them a
copy of the boy crisis or the myth of
male power and if they read it and
whether they agree with you or disagree
with you if they have an open mind to
read it and then have a good
non-defended conversation with you then
this woman is a keeper but if they can't
you know if they make any excuses it's
not really to begin with or they read a
page or they start arguing instead of
really
deepening into it then um then just save
the time save the money now the myth of
male power i have not read yet i can
only imagine that's a very controversial
title these days so in what way like
given
the number of ceos that are men given
the number of politicians in high
positions that are men like where's the
myth myth isn't exactly what you told
your wife at the very beginning
that um
that you're spending your life
doing all of this being in in part
because you wanted to be called the hero
but also in part because you would be
willing to die for women and you would
be willing to make all this money
you know you're be willing to um
give up being the elementary school
teacher musician artist that you
fantasize being
when the children were born
because you felt you wanted to give your
wife the options and but you increased
the mandate on yourself and so now if
you become the superintendent of schools
let's say
in your in your area and feminists look
at you and say uh-huh more
superintendents are men even though more
teachers are women this shows that men
are part of the patriarchy have the
power and still are in control
and you're able to say uh no actually
when i didn't want to do that at all
until the children were born it was my
desire to keep teaching elementary
school teacher
teaching or be the musician or the
artist but it wasn't creating enough
dependable secure income so i gave up
what i love to do to do what i needed to
do to protect and to love you and the
family better and so that perspective is
an example of the myth of male power
however i'm i'm updating the myth of
male power now because it came out 30
years ago and
yeah and calling it the paradox of male
power because i want to honor the
women's experience of being for example
with you know with a governor or with a
uh ceo and being come on to indirectly
by the ceo and feeling the compromises
inside of herself from her experi from
her perspective he does have power
from his perspective he has power and he
doesn't have power
because of the expectation on him to do
that in order to be loved and so um i'm
introducing more of the paradox of male
power
which i think it will be a little bit
easier for women to hear and understand
that's really intriguing yeah the the
idea of i think power dynamics are
real i think they're fascinating
um was it mark twain that said
everything's about sex except sex that's
about power
i always found that like whoa
that's one of those like it's something
incredibly racy hiding in plain sight
and you tie that to the fact that women
do fall in love with the superman and
here is something in my own love life so
when i started
trying to attract the attention of women
i was really terrible i would actually
show up on the first date with a poem
that i wrote for them flowers everything
and and i just could never get anywhere
and
even women would just make fun of me
they're just like this is so ridiculous
tom this isn't how it works but i could
never figure out how it actually worked
and uh i so i finally meet this guy and
he's just exceptionally good with women
now it does not hurt that he's a very
attractive man
but i remember just asking him george
what what is the secret
and he said oh you just have to be an
[ __ ] and i was like i can't that's
such a cliche i'm like there's no way
that that's really the answer but one
i'd heard it so many times before and
then two i see how good this guy is with
women so i'm like what does he mean
there's no way that it's actually being
an [ __ ]
and i realized that it was
confidence you had to seem like you
didn't care and so that you in that way
became worthy of pursuit so even if you
are pursuing them they have to feel like
it's not a sure thing like you're not
the easy catch now what
psychology of like sexual mating
preference and sexual market value goes
on in there like that's a whole nother
thing
but
it literally i remember one day deciding
i was going to flip a switch and i was
going to be me and i was going to be a
filtering mechanism if you liked me
great and if you didn't tough [ __ ] and
that
on on that day warren everything changed
and i just stopped trying to please them
stop trying to come across cool nothing
i was just like yep here i am this is me
and on a dime everything with women
changed for me it was unreal i was like
i cannot believe that it really was that
simple and so the woman who i ended up
marrying
on our first date i was like
just talking the way that i would
normally talk so from one of the things
i told her was dude it drives me crazy
when people in a relationship say oh i
only have eyes for you i'm like look if
you and i ended up in a relationship let
me tell you right now i will forever
find other women attractive and i won't
believe you if you tell me that you only
have ice for me i'm like brad pitt
is way better looking than me so for you
to say oh no no i don't i don't find him
attractive but you you i find to try get
out of here and it makes me feel
insecure versus if you say
oh no no he's super hot amazing body and
by the way if you're willing to go do
the work to get that buddy i won't
complain
uh
but i'm with you i choose to be with you
and you will never have to worry about
me straying because of commitment love
connection shared life all that stuff
and
i remember when i was saying these
things to her she was like what is
happening like this guy is so weird
nobody has ever talked to me like this
ever before in my life
and of course she ends up becoming my
wife
and
when i tell people though how my wife
and i met it gets to your paradox of
power so i was teaching at a school for
adults and she was my student
and the first thing that i ever said to
her in a flirtatious manner was
sit your ass down where do you think
you're going
and it's like everything that like now
people be like what is going on but
because we've been together for 21 years
it's like the proof is you know in the
pudding i wasn't just being a sleazeball
i just realized that
confidence
nonchalance playfulness
no neediness it just works
and so
of course i delivered that line in a fun
and playful way
to somebody that was already attracted
to me so of course it could have gone
horribly wrong i was deft enough to know
that it would work well on that exact
one person
but
the that whole dynamic
i feel like now we're
starting to pretend
that they're just certain things about
sexual dynamics men and women that
aren't true that just are obviously true
and
what one has to do to become quote
unquote attractive like there's actually
an answer to that and figuring that out
seems critically important yeah
absolutely so on the the so there's many
many parts of what you said that are so
important first of all the only thing i
disagree with is your friend who said
you have to be an [ __ ] you were not
you were not being an [ __ ] you but
you were
not um but when you brought the flowers
and wrote the poem you were what the
woman saw was neediness um and and women
are not turned on by neediness um
they're i've run the experiment that is
absolutely true
absolutely and is there's also a very
hard and challenging myth that fem we
feminist feminists sort of
spread uh that i now completely disagree
with uh with we know women saying what
is there about know that you don't
understand
well here is what there is about no that
i don't understand
is no
forever
is no till i say yes to a new date
is no a no until maybe i feel more
relaxed and have a bit more wine
is no um a no until you talk more about
yourself rather than just about me
more about me rather than just about
yourself
until you show a little bit less
neediness
until you show a little bit more respect
until i see a sense of humor
um and um and
so
those are all the things about no that
are not understood and so if
you're in a
place until you turn the music up throw
it down
play a different type of music
um you know get off the rap music and
play me a nice john legend song about
love
um you know and so um what is there
that is
missing
that's leading me to say no
that and how and how soon will you
discover it
soon enough for me to be responsive
tonight
or i may have to wait a few more dates
or there may never be a few more days so
those were all the questions that when
both sexes
i used to do role reversal dates and
men's beauty contests all around the
country and
i got women to be the ones to be able to
ask men out on a roll rehearsal date and
i programmed the men to be resistant to
being responsive to their sexual sexual
overtures and i programmed the the men
to um be on the stage and be in the
beauty contest of everyday life that
every woman is a part of whether she's
attractive or unattractive she's looked
at us as a sex object until um or or
she's dropped out of the competition if
she's unattractive or older um and so
the and so it was it was designed for
both sexes to walk a mile in each
other's moccasins
and so the the next thing you said
that's so important is
what you said
about set your ass down here
would have been
a sexual harassment um accusation at the
wrong time
and seen as a joke that expressed your
trust in her and your confidence and
your sense of humor at another time
so the the rules are so um the rules
create
such a um
a robotic
type of um
modality
that is just plain not
applicable to human relationships which
are based on a lot of different
subtleties including the movement of
eyes if a woman says no and you're in
the middle of making love and she says
oh no oh my god no no no
that may not mean no stop right there um
but if she says no i'm not liking that
that means no stop right there um but
the same words but different tone of
voice different attitude different
contexts as you just pointed out
with saying words that could be held
make you look like
like the next um criminal
versus making you look like somebody who
had had confidence and a sense of humor
and playfulness and therefore trust in
her
and so these are the things that that
the woke generation and the cancer
culture generation is completely leaving
out and they're leaving it out of the
university
because i say leaving it out of the
university with such emphasis on the
word university because the university
should be the place where we're
exploring every possibility every option
there should be nothing that is part of
cancel culture
or you're condemned with for being
inappropriate in the university it
should all be fodder for listening to it
and then having a safe space to respond
to it and having a safe space provided
so that the other person can listen to
what you object to but not canceling
speakers that disagree
with your perspective just because um
you don't want that perspective even
presented that is the opposite of
everything a university should be about
i agree
so bringing it all back round to the boy
crisis
what's the way out
the first most important single way out
is to understand dad style parenting and
how it differs from mom-style parenting
and how both sexes together
need to create a checks and balance
parenting so that children
second is learning how to hear each
other
in your relationships so you don't have
to choose between
getting divorced versus staying together
you really are staying together not just
to hold on to it by your
um you know
and
for the children's sake but you really
feel heard by your partner
third is to make sure
we have a whole new era of what i would
call a father
warrior program of saying to men
dads you are needed in the parenting
process
not just if you want to be
you are needed like you're needed at war
that boys are having boys who are
fatherless today
they're the ones that are committing
suicide they're the ones that are having
their intelligence dropped they're
that's crazy 15 point iq drop if i
remember from the book and i could have
got very good memory uh sixty percent
drop in semen count um that's crazy what
why would that affect it um
um sperm count is what i've said rather
than
uh sperm count
the
i uh
we don't we
don't know for sure
but we only know that we only know that
my speculation is that when boys don't
have discipline
they don't start generating um that
ability to
to to do things that are above their
reach to try new things and that
decreases the your your um your sperm
and and your your the testosterone and
your masculinity um because of the title
like competence and hierarchical
function and because i know as you go up
competence hierarchies you
your serotonin goes up your testosterone
goes up your sense of like where you
stand in the world that's if that's true
that's terrifying
uh wow okay that's especially terrifying
because
the boys who are dad deprived they are
the ones most likely to commit suicide
most likely to be depressed most um
likely to and and most likely to drop
out of high school the ones most likely
to drop out of high school uh their
unemployment rate in their early 20s is
over 20 percent
this was unemployment when it was a 3.2
percent unemployment before covent in
the united states just to give you some
sense
there are more in the boy crisis book i
have an appendix that lists about 70
different ways that boys suffer
when they have minimal or no father
involvement but most of those ways also
are applicable to our daughters as well
they suffer without
father involvement they're much more
likely to be fearful of physical touch
by men that is
playful so if they don't roughhouse with
their dad
um when when a man is when they're out
with a man they don't have that comfort
level of non-sexual touch and so they
tend to um be much more likely to become
pregnant as teenagers why
because as teenagers
they feel like they only know one way
that they've learned to please a guy and
that is to be sexual so they end up
being sexual before they're ready to be
sexual or conversely they're so afraid
they don't know enough about guys as to
know
how to please them so rather than even
enter that arena that i just mentioned
they stay away from guys all together
and so and then the one time they do
have a connection with a guy
they are sexual with them and boom
as a teenager they're pregnant but not
necessarily with a guy that they really
want to marry
and so um and so in in 70 ways that are
most of them the same as with males but
um but with but less intense as with
males um so for example
and this the stuff that the data is just
amazing so for example when a boy or a
girl are nine and a half years of age um
they've found that that's um the amount
of father involvement
is a predictor of the length of their
telomeres
for someone oh
so someone that doesn't know what a
telomere is the telomere is a part of
your cell that contains all of your
predictors of do you get cancer you are
you more likely to be vulnerable to
um brain damage are you more likely to
be vulnerable to
um
alzheimer's and so so on
boys and girls other factors being equal
like socioeconomic factors who have a
significant amount of father involvement
their
telomeres are 14
longer that is
predictor predicting a longer life
expectancy at the age of nine and a half
than without a significant amount of
father involvement but
the boys
kilometers are yet again 40
um more likely uh likely to be even 40
shorter than the girls when there's a
lack of father involvement
wow
so the lack of father involvement hurts
both girls and boys
but it hurts boys about 40
more intensely than their sisters
and so those are just some of the
examples of how important dad
involvement is and so our first solution
needs to be saying to men no
we no longer need you so much at war
to be killing and being killed
but rather we need you at home to be
loved and to loving and being loved
and that the man that the new future man
is one who can respect himself
if he's
a natural warrior at on the battlefield
we need you we need your firefighters
but also can respect yourself and know
that you're needed um by your family to
be more involved with your family at an
everyday level and that the things that
you tend to do like the rough housing
the teasing
the um the
allowing your son to take more risks by
walking down
a lake to a lake that's out that's a
little bit away from where they are as
long as you know where that lake is and
you're following somewhere behind them
or um climatry as long as you're under
the tree creating protection
that this is that that you have a
positive that your instincts that you
don't know why you're doing it learn why
you're doing it so you can lovingly
explain to your wife or the mother uh
why you're doing it so you don't just
sort of seem like an autocrat who's
doing things that look like a child but
you can help your
mother understand that you are truly
dedicated to your children doing better
and and prove that by studying
not just what you do at work
but what your contribution is to the
family
and one more thing on that
um is if you do anything
with the boy crisis book study the part
about how to create a family dinner
night without it becoming a family
dinner nightmare
um how to how to create it so that your
children are listening to you
and you are listening to your children
using some of the skill sets that i was
mentioning before that i do in the
couples communication workshops
amazing
warren i i am beyond grateful for the
work that you've done the the boy crisis
is fascinating i'll very eagerly
anticipate the update to uh the paradox
of male power
um
absolutely incredible thank you so much
for taking the time to share it where
can people follow along with you learn
more about you
just do
warrenferal.com i'll come up my website
will come up on my website is my email
address i'm
i answer every single email i get i have
only one email address
so i take time away from my writing to
do that
because i really learn so much from the
people i connect with and the connection
itself is a great value to me
and the boy crisis book if money is an
issue um it's
amazon almost always has it less
expensively right now they have a sale
on on the paperback version
the um and then i also find that many
people especially um who ones who travel
or commute
or use the gym a lot
love the audible version um more than
the print version and i i do read my
part of it and john gray the fellow who
wrote men are from mars winner wonderful
venus wrote the entire part six on on
how to prevent adhd
which we haven't talked about here
because he's the expert on that
amazing well thank you again so much
absolutely incredible the book blew my
mind the conversation was
amazing and i look forward to continuing
it speaking of things that you should
continue doing if you haven't already be
sure to subscribe and until next time my
friends be legendary take care peace
you