When it comes to the issue of race and gender, when it comes to the issue of masculinity, there are few people that hold more credentials on this subject matter than my next guest. This is Gavin Newsom, and this is Jackson Katz. You've got a new book coming out at least overseas, and we'll see who comes out here. It's called every Man. But I mean that's interesting. Obama Renegade's Springsteen. So tell me a little bit more about that.
Well, yeah, my book was just published in the UK in February, but it's coming out in September in the United States the American version. It's called every Man, Why violence against women is a men's issue and how you can make a difference.
And Jack, just so for people that don't know you, you've been at this issue, been talking about the issue of intersection between gender race violence for decades and decades. I mean you've been in this space talking about the issues of masculinity, what's happening to young men and the relations between the sexes for twenty five plus years.
Right, Oh, yeah, since I was a college student really, which is a long time ago.
And what what what what originally inspired all of this and ultimately what inspired this book all these decades later, building on what the work you've been doing.
Well, you know, as a young guy, and I was a big, you know, athlete in high school. I was an all star football player, and I was I came from a blue collar family, you know. If my stepfather was a truck driver and an army veteran of World War Two. My father was a medic in Germany and France in World War Two. I came from a family where you know, well, you know, it was a blue collar family, and and and and yet education was a
big emphasis. And and when I was in college, I started taking courses in subjects that related to you know, gender and race and other things. And I was learning. I thought I was smart when I was a young guy, but I realized how little I knew, especially about how other people lived, because I, you know, I came from a kind of a white suburban background just north of Boston.
And when I started taking classes on gender related topics and started hearing about women's experiences of violence, and I started seeing women organizing around the fear that they have so often, especially at night, you know, because that was the beginning of the take back to Night movement where women were marching to say, we have the right to
walk outside at night. And I remember thinking when I saw these women, you know, sort of organizing for better lighting on campus, I remember thinking not that these women hated men, but that they felt like they had the right to walk across campus. And I felt like that was what leadership looked like. I was inspired by it.
I was a young student journalist at the time, and I was inspired by women standing up and speaking up for themselves, just as I was inspired by African Americans and what we used to call, you know, the in the gay what used to be called the gay rights movement, which is now the LGBTK.
And just put us in context of what year, roughly would we be talking.
About, Roughly around nineteen eighty, So it's like, you know, I'm a little long in the two, but I've been doing this work so since I started speaking out then, and because I had this background in traditional male culture as a as an athlete and pretty successful, I knew
that I had a platform. I knew that people were interested when I started saying, hey, you know, sexual assault and domestic violence, this is wrong, guys, this is like wrong and women should be able to shouldn't have to worry constantly about their personal safety and how would you feel if you were a woman, and how to live like that? I remember thinking, why aren't more men saying
these things? Why aren't more men speaking out? Why is it always you know, women having to organize and speak out and push for, you know, reforms of the laws. Why aren't men doing this? And I know most men are not abusive, but yet most men don't speak out. And so because I knew I had a platform, I started speaking out. And honestly, I'm doing today, Governor, what I started doing as a you know, nineteen year old.
I always say my hair is a lot shorter, not by choice, right, And I have nicer clothes than I did when I was a you know, a nineteen year old guy. But it's the same message. And you know, my book every Man, you know why violence against women as a men's issue is like what I've been saying for forty years. It's just because of my work and other people's work and the way the culture moves. There's you know, there's an energy now, there's a receptivity to
talking about this, thinking about this. With the exception of the backsliding that we're doing in our country right now, which is a really dramatic series of steps backwards. And you know, we can talk about that as well.
So what I mean when you look back forty years, I mean, did you really feel like you were the lone voice back then? I mean, were there was there any organized movement or recognition or was there any political leadership with men in this space to call out that violence against women? Or is it primarily would you describe as the feminist movement that was really organized behind the women's rights in this space or.
At least yeah, it was definitely a sort of multi racial, multi ethnic feminist women led movement, and there was a tiny number of men. I mean I was, you know, I was kind of an early adapter as they would say, or adopter, like when I was twenty. I mean, there was not that many men doing this work, and now there are. I mean, there's no question that my work and a lot of other people's work over the last couple of generations has made a difference in terms of
normalizing this kind of conversation. But political leadership very limited. I'm not saying it didn't exist, but it was very limited and in the public space, it was very unusual to hear men talking about any of this subject matter.
And the fact that you started to say this is a man's issue, I mean, what do you mean by that? And how was that received by women that were expressing themselves and leaders in the feminist movement? Was it well received in that respect? Was it understood when you started talking initially about this being a man's issue?
Generally speaking? I would say yes, because what feminist leaders were saying back then and they say this now, is that the role for men who are really know, concerned about these matters, which, by the way, all men should be.
It's not something that should be a specific to me or a small number of men yourself, but a lot of the you know, a lot of the women leaders, including Bell Hooks famously, the African American, the sadly late African American feminist scholar and writer and activist, would say, would she and others would say the proper role for men in this work is to educate, organize, and politicize other men. It's not to it's not to go in
and save women or even to work with women. It's to go into male culture in every racial and ethnic you know, community and every it's a global These are global problems, not local problems. I mean they're manifest locally, but their global problems. The proper role for men is to is to like, yeah, with their guys, you know what I mean, like their their friends, their colleagues, their peers, and adult men need to be providing much more over it and explicit leadership to young men. And if you
stay in that lane. In other words, I think that's what women are asking. It's, by the way, it's very similar to what people of color have been saying for white people who are whether you call them allies or collaborators. It's like, you don't need white people going to black communities. You need white people organizing white people and speaking out and using the platform of influence that they have within their own sort of you know, culture or spheres of influence.
It's a simple concept. It's not even that complicated.
So you say, I mean for forty years you've been at this and obviously there was you know, you've had an incredibly successful career, had a lot of influence in this space. But you referenced yourself that this is there seems to be a door that's opening now in this space. But they're also a door closing, and we'll get to that in a minute in terms of some regression. But the door that's opening in terms of what consciousness in the space, a recognition of the crisis of young men.
The political side of this, how do you describe from Is it a policy framework that you see shifting or political framework that's shifting.
It's both, I would say, I would say I would say there's a shift in consciousness that's been happening over the last couple of generations. Really it's not a really, you know, brand new thing. I mean, whole generations of men and young men have grown up with feminist mothers, with women in the workplace as equals, with girls and women sitting next to them in school, in the professional world.
I mean, my parents' generation didn't have those experiences. It was much more sex segregated, and women were excluded from mainstream sort of competition with men in so many areas. But there's a whole generations of men who have come of age in a way that it's been normalized, you know, and a lot of men have much more likely to have female friends and colleagues. And take that as just obvious as opposed to something that some radical new, you know,
development that they have to adjust to. But at the same time, I think there's a whole lot of men who have done very little speaking out about men's violence against women, and a lot of men get really uncomfortable about this subject. And I think a lot of men, including powerful men, who are really incredibly articulate about a whole range of subjects, but when it comes to this subject, they are like, oh my god, I don't I don't want to go near this, or I don't know exactly
what to say, or they become inarticulate. And so what ends up happening for a lot of men, including powerful men, I'm serious, Uh, what they'll do is they'll either remain silent because they don't want to screw it up, or they're or they're just so uncomfortable, or they'll defer to women and women's leadership. And I think on one level, fine, we need to, we need to, you know, uplift women's leadership. But in a sense that's that's not fair. It's not
what it's not why why is it women's responsibility? It should be men's. That's that's that's a way of hoisting off of you know, putting onto women what should be what men should be carrying, especially those of us who have you know, cultural, political, economic, you know, power and influence. And so I think, I think one of the big challenges of our time is getting more men who are already there in the sense that we're uncomfortable with other
men's abusive behavior. We don't like it, we know it when we see it, but we don't either know what to say or we feel uncomfortable around it and don't know what to do, and so we retreat. And I think, I think what we need to do is not that we have to quote unquote convert the men who are the most deeply you know, misogynists and angry at women. It's that we have to talk to men. I mean, that would be a good thing, but I mean that's
not where I spend my time. I spend my time with men who are already knows that, who already know that gender justice, gender equality, reducing gender based violence are important things, but they don't really know how or what to do about it. My goal is to empower them and to give them, both conceptually and practically the tools to be better leaders. And to be better partners, be better you know, fathers, uncles, you know, teachers, coaches, youth workers,
you know, religious leaders. There's so many men who are good men in positions of influence, especially with young people, who could be doing so much more than they're doing right now.
Contextualize the issue for and just sort of, you know, bring us in a little bit on you know, one of the trend lines we've seen in the last few decades. I mean, when you started this work, was sort of was that an apex of the anxiety in this space? Was it? Was there just little data, a little research in this space. Are we seeing a diminution and violence perpetrated against or against women? Are we seeing a return to a little more misogyny? And has it been impacted
by culture? Social media, has been impacted even by our politics today.
All of that, I think, I think you've touched on a whole bunch of really important developments. It's a complicated thing, like social change itself is really complicated. So we're making all kinds of forward progress. There's reforms in the laws, There's a level of consciousness that seeps through, whether it's through the education system, through media. There's so many powerful and empowered women that are vocal and thoughtful around this
subject matter to a lesser extent men. But at the same time, yes, we have had an enormous backlash against some of this progress, and I think, honestly, I think right wing populism in the United States and in Europe
and other parts of the world. But a big part of it that doesn't get enough sort of discussion is that it's not just resistance to racial integration and immigration and the increasing you know, sort of racial and ethnic heterogeneity of some of these societies that had previously been pretty white. That's a part of it I'm saying. I mean, part of it, clearly is right wing populism feeds on
that energy, that sort of racial grievance. But I think it's also a lot of men who are really put off by and decentered by feminism and by the LGBTQ revolution, which decenters sort of heteronormative heterosexual men in particular, And I think that has to be part of the conversation. I mean trump Ism, for example, me trump Ism is so much of that is about not just white backlash,
but white male backlash against forward progress by by by women. Basically, and this is tricky stuff because you know, can I also say I also, I think it's really important that I say. People like me who have been doing the work that I and we have been doing, have long made the connection between men's violence against women, men's violence against other men, and men's violence against themselves, because you know,
suicide is violence turned inward. So the idea that sometimes men will say, well, well you talk about violence against women, yo, okay, what about violence against men? You know you'll hear this, And I write about this in my book, of course, because this is so predictable. It's like, well, I've thought about that. Of course, we've all thought about we all
understand this. My friend Michael Kaufman, who's the co founder of the White Ribbon Campaign, which is the largest global movement of men working to end men's violence against women. It's in like sixty something countries and it's a great thing. It started after the Montreal men massacre in nineteen eighty nine, where a man, a twenty five year old man, lined up fourteen women in the Institute of Technology and murdered
them in cold blood. This is in nineteen eighty nine, and he left a suicide note that said feminists, you know, blaming feminists for having ruined his life, and he was going to take revenge. Well, a group of men created the White Ribbon campaign, which is this big public display two years later where a man, you know, at the end of November every year, men wear white ribbons, Michael to say that they're not going to condone men's violence
against women, be silent in the face of it. Michael Kaufman wrote this essay in nineteen eighty seven where he connected men's violence against women to men's violence against other men, to men's violence against themselves because they're all connected, and so no thoughtful person in the twenty first centuries who's looking at men's violence against women fails to see that all kinds of other things in men's lives are also connected.
In addition, by the way, look at all the men, I mean, who have women in our lives who have been assaulted by other men. Who look at all the men adult men who have you know, partner partnered with women who are sexual assault survivors or domestic mind and full disclosure.
You know, well, my wife who's been very vocal about that, and I am what occurred with Harvey Weinstein.
She has been, and she's been an incredible brave leader on this subject. And I love her leadership on this and her bravery, and I love working with her on these matters absolutely. But I'm saying there's so much I don't know what your point. Yes, I don't know any man who doesn't have women, So.
I imagine you go to audiences all the time and just ask people to raise their hand.
Or or or yes or just in terms of my social networks and the people that I know, I mean, I'm I'm surprised if I meet a man who doesn't have women in his life who have been assaulted by other men. It's it's not some esoteric subject matter that affects some small.
Is it getting worse? Is it getting better?
Again? It's a complicated question. I think we've made enormous progress until the current regime, and the level we've made enormous progress.
I'm curious. I mean, you just you just put out a report that can really quantify that in terms of research dollars that are rolling back. Obviously, advocacy in the DEI space, which is not I think so much of what people focus on DEI is around racial issues, but A big part of the movement was a gender issues and obviously that's that's under assault. But what else I mean is the actual statistics in terms of acts of violence perpetuated against women. Is that increasing, decreasing or is
those research dollars drying up? And we're going to finally not really have any understanding of that.
All of the above, I would I would say we have been making progress. There have been some there has been some data that showed that we have been making progress over the past, you know, twenty five thirty years in reducing the incidents of domestic and sexual violence. But the flip side is you don't know fully because of
the vast majority has never reported. And then when you're effective at raising consciousness, when you're effective at providing services to victims and survivors, when you create an environment in an institutional setting, whether it's in a corporation or obviously in a school or some other in the military or at some other setting, if you create an environment where people feel comfortable coming forward to access services or to say that this has happened to them, then they're going
to come forward. But if you create an environment where the institution is non responsive, then they're going to remain silent. And so when all these programs are being cut, one of the effects is people won't come forward because they'll be scared that or they'll be doing a cost benefit analysis they'll say, you know what, it's not worth it because why why do I want to be re injured by the system not being responsive to my needs and put myself even more in more position of vulnerability. So
it's complicated in terms of the back and forth. But also I do have to say the social media is sort of the digital revolution has created a whole new set of challenges. It's also created new possibilities obviously for connection and for solidarity and community and people connecting with each other from their isolated, you know, silos. There's no question that it's a mixed bag in terms of this subject matter. But the porn culture, the pervasiveness of like deeply misogynous, the complication.
Of women, the objects ownership.
Yes, and the complete sexual degradation of women in the mainstream porn culture that a lot of young people growing up with it are seeing that as normal. They're not they're not seeing this as like some oh my god, some radical you know, uh, you know, new development. They're more like, this is what sex is supposed to look like. It's it's some of it's just incredibly abusive and cruel. We're not talking about sexual expression here. We're talking about
cruelty and misogyny enshrined in the sexual act. And a lot of young guys, I mean, who think that that's supposed to be that's normal. What ends up happening in some of these relationships is guys are doing things to women like in heterosexual relationships, non consensually. They're you know, they're starting to strangle them during you know, consensual non consensual strangulation during consensual sex and things, thinking that it's normal and it's unbelievable. Have you seen adolescens?
Yeah, I didn't have the guts. I mean, I back to my wife Jen, she wanted me to see it, and I did the opening scene, realizing the depths of it. As a father, you know, I've.
Got I mean at this age, right.
I mean, I've got We've got four young kids, two boys and uh and social media is just encroaching upon their lives and our lives.
And it found way well I appreciate that, and I and I'm going to say this is a spoiler alert. But but I have to say that the main actor, or one of the one of the main actors, Stephen Graham, the British actor, who is also the uh one of the creators and the co writer of the piece, brilliant. This guy is brilliant, right, I mean he talks about
this publicly. He talks about it on Jimmy Fallon. So I'm not giving away something that isn't like a mainstream sort of you know, uh sort of plot point, but one of the I think one of the most powerful things about the story and one of the reasons why I caught on so much. I mean caught on like in the way that I think it might be the biggest Netflix uh my success ever and in the UK
something like half the population I've seen the thing. Okay, Anyways, the point is the storyline about the father and his feelings of failure for having failed to protect his son, and he thought he was doing a good job. In other words, this was a you know, a heterosexual, heteronormai family, blue collar family. He's a plumber, thought that he was doing what his father didn't do for.
Him and and just just quickly it's a thirteen year old kid.
Thirteen year old boy who is who murders his classmate? And and what's in the background of the whole piece. They don't really foreground it, but it's certainly always there is the manisphere, the misogynist manisphere. That's the Andrew Tait world where this young boy had been in his room, so his parents thought he was safe. He's in his room, he's you know, he's there. They're doing their job, and
meanwhile he was immersed in that whole world. The reason why I think that so many people resonate with this film, including man and myself. I'm a father of a son. I have a young son. You know, he's in his twenties, but he's, you know, young young guy. I think it resonated with a lot of men because of the father's pain and how badly he felt he had let down his son, as well as of course the girl and her family because she was the primary victim.
No, I mean it's look, I mean it well, it speaks with unpacking all of that, and I want to get back to this mano sphere and I think, I mean, you alluded to it in the context of social media, but even unpacking that a little bit. You've made a point and reinforced a point today in a report you just put out that there is now a big setback.
In this space.
I mean there's a very intentional, organized effort now with the current administration, the Trump administration, to vandalize a lot of the progress in the space.
Yeah. Yes, and it's disgraceful. Let me just say, I'll just use that word. It's disgraceful and it's harmful to women, but it's also harmful to men. I'll give you an example the military. I've been working with the military. I created the first gender violence prevention program in the United States Department of Defense nineteen ninety seven. We started out in the Marine Corps. And I and my colleagues have been working in that space for a long time, twenty
seven years or something. And there's all these great people, men and women, and you know, uniform military and DoD civilians. And I was on the US Secretary Secretary of Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence in the Military. This is back in two thousand. I mean, there have been so many different talented people, including uniform military leaders, who are on board with knowing how important it is to talk
about this stuff. To have programming to create it's for morale purposes, for mission readiness purposes, for all these reasons. Having this kind of educational process within the military space is really important, and it's being all just radically cut back, and it's just it's absolutely disgraceful. And I'm saying this
as somebody who's been working in that space. And if anybody thinks that it's somehow anti mail, this is what this is the subtext of all this, right, that somehow it's anti mail to like talk about sexual assault or domestic violence. This is BS. This is byes.
They frame it in the wokesm just more woke.
BS right and there and there and that's and I'll call BS on that because there's so many good people, including really powerful men in that space. I mean, I've worked with so many powerful military leaders from the from the you know generals and colonels and admirals at the highest level of you know authority. But also like when I started in the Marine, working in the in the Marine Corps, we were working with it was called a
Sergeant's Major Initiative. It was an enlisted leadership initiative. We were training sergeants. These are these are generally men. In you know, the Marine Corps about ninety four percent male, so there are women, but it's very much a male
dominated space. Let's be clear. Most of the you know sergeants are in their twenties and they work directly with the young troops, these you know, the eighteen nineteen, twenty year old troops, and so providing the leadership, providing the leadership training for them for how they can leadership to the younger troops. This is to me such a basic thing. It should be. It should be not only should it not be rolled back, it should be expanded and deepened.
And it's what's happening is the exact opposite. Under the name of supposedly caring about warrior culture, this is just total bs. And I think under the name of anti wokeism, some of the most some of the most forward thinking and and sort of useful educational and other consciousness, you know, shifting strategies over the last generation are being undermined.
And you've seen this happening also in sports, because I know you've been not just working a military but you've represented a lot of good work in many different venues as it related to athletics as well.
Well again, the program that I created, the Mentors and Violence Prevention Program MVP, was the first nineteen ninety three at a place called the Center for the Study of Sport in Society. That's an institute that was created by Richard Lapchick, doctor Richard Lapschick, who's a pioneer of combining sport and civil rights activism. Father. There was Joe Lapchick, one of the pioneering players and coaches in the NBA, who was a white guy. Joe Lapchick, He's in the
Hall of Fame. I mean, this is an NBA guy. He ended up as the coach of the New York Knicks, and he was the coach of the Saint John's men's basketball team. This is the father. He was also a white guy who was for racial integration, way ahead of the curve. The son was an activist, like a sixties era activist who wasn't an elite athlete, but he was
passionate about civil rights and sports. And he created this institute in nineteen ninety In nineteen eighty four, and I, as a graduate student in Boston, came over to his institute pitching the program to train college male student athletes to speak out on these matters. This is in nineteen ninety three, and my thinking was not that there was a problem in athletics of male athletes assoulting women, although
there was such a problem and continues to be. My thinking was, where are we going to find young men who have the status, the self confidence, and the platform of influence to break the silence among men and young men, Because I was thinking, lots of guys are uncomfortable with abusive behavior and misogyny around them, but they don't speak up. As I was saying earlier, so we need more men who have already have some confidence because it takes guts.
One of the reasons why guys don't speak up on these matters is it takes guts, it takes strength, it takes self confidence. And not just twenty year olds, but for fifty year olds. A lot of men get a little they're anxious, and you know what they're anxious about. They're anxious about other men, and they're anxious that other men are going to think that somehow they're soft or weak.
And it drives me. I have to say, it drives me crazy because I watch on people on the right mock and ridicule men who speak out about domestic violence or sexual assault. Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, These people mock and ridicule. Andrew Tate is even more exaggerated in what he in how he mocks, in ridicules men who stand for gender equality and gender justice, as if we're somehow
soft and weak. And I often say, and I so appreciate the opportunity to say this to you here in this in this setting, if you're a guy, being one of the guys takes nothing special whatsoever. Just going along with you boys, It's like that takes nothing special. What takes something special if you're a guy, is turning to
your friends and saying, hey, dude, that's not cool. The way we don't do shit like you know, we don't do stuff like that here, yeah, or we don't treat women like that, or that's not you're my friend, But the way you're talking to your girlfriend, I'm concerned. That's not cool, dude. That takes so much more strength and
guts and self confidence. And yet the guy who does who says it is a is a beta, is a woos is a soy boy, is a virtue signaler, and so many young guys have grown up in a media environment, a social media environment where like me, I know that's what's going to happen is when people watch this, there's gonna be people that, who's that, who's that? Beta. It's just so embarrassing to me because it's like literally the opposite of the truth, right And so anyways, that's why
I started working with in the athletic subculture. And my program was the first large scale program in college athletics, and that was the first program in professional and I have to say, you know who are first the first team we work with in professional athletics, New England Patriots. And then and then we work with the Red Sox because you know, we're in Boston, right, So we had the Patriots in the Red Sox and at one point the Patriots had won like three out of the first
like five years we were working with them. The Patriots had won the Super Bowl and the Red Sox had won the World Series for the first time in eighty six years right after they started working with us. And so I said, I would always say, as a laugh line, I would say, you know what about the Yankees, I'm sure,
well that's true. Well, that's true but but it was even more self serving, I said, I said, you know, I'm not going to claim that the Red Sox and the patriots working with us was the reason why they won incredible championships. But you can't prove disprove it either.
Wi.
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So back to the manospeare because you mentioned Joe Rogan, you mentioned Joe Peterson, obviously mentioned Andrew Tay, who you know, respectfully need not be mentioned much. I mean he's I mean even by extreme standards. He's a unique spectrum. That said, he's also been embraced by members of the Trump administration and Trump himself, which full disclosure. But talk to me about the manos speirre, I mean, what is it?
And who?
By the way, who are some of these fun I mean people I think I have heard of. Joe Rogan. Average person may not have heard of Joe Rogan then obviously heard something about him when it came to Kamala Harris not deciding to go to Austin to go on his podcast, though few people likely were first to learn about him with that alone. But Joe Peterson's someone not everybody knows who else in this mano sphere? What is it? How do you define it? And when did you start
to see the emergence of it? And how real inconsequential is it is? Is it in the context of this gender conversation.
Well, it was certainly a small sort of dark corner of the Internet for a number of years where men who were many of them really angry at women, at feminism more generally, and at women. Many of them were men who were divorced, who had custody battles, you know, who were really angry at both the courts in some cases their you know, their wives or their ex wives because they didn't have access to their kids. And some of those men were abusive, some of them weren't abusive.
It's it's a complicated picture. And when it comes to the you know, the messiness of relationships, I mean, i'm you know, who knows, you know. But so there was there was a sort of men's rights movement which was organizing itself. And then when the Internet came came into the picture, they were organizing through you know, through connecting with each other through the digital universe. And it was called the manosphere. And it was again a small sort
of corner of the Internet. It's become completely mainstream now. So and and you know, Donald Trump's election in twenty sixteen was a big accelerant to the to the mainstreaming of the Manisphere. And now a lot of young people, young boys in particular, but not exclusively, but certainly young boys and young men get drawn into the manisphere. And by the way, not necessarily because they're you know, ideological. It's not because they have like a critique of feminism
or something or anything, or masculinity. It's more like the algorithms draw them in and maybe.
Maybe learning on a YouTube version of a video game they like, and all of a sudden there's an ad that's right, it's you know, with a Bugatti or something, and they click onto that. All of a sudden they're part of some university's right, and then all of a sudden, two months later, they're in a conspiracy theory.
That's right, that's right, and and and and part exactly and part of the conspiracy is that is that men are being taken advantage of, and that men are being disadvantaged, and that you know, feminists are uh anti mail and that and that you as a man need to stand up and speak up and fight back because you know, that's the whole red pill idea. Like somehow, somehow you're now consciously seeing that the world is lined up for women, and which is, by the way, again talk about a
topsy turvy understanding of the way the world works. Right And by the way, a lot of these men, as you know, a lot of these men have never they've never taken a course on you know, gender. You know, they've never read a book about it. They've never attended seminars, they haven't watched you know, long YouTube videos or even even Ted talks like my Ted Talk or other people's Ted talks. They haven't had much exposure, but they have heard that, you know, feminists hate men and especially white men.
Let me just say this is one of the things that I think is really great about you doing this podcast and the kind of people that you've been interviewing. You're having a dialogue. I think I think a lot of young guys don't hear any conversation like this whatsoever, and certainly if there if all they're listening to is the Jordan Peterson's of the world and the and Joe Rogan.
And by the way, Joe Rogan has enormous, enormous influence, and he's not particularly ideological, although he does platform people right of center, and he's very conspiratorial in the way he thinks.
So not long ago he was he was platforming in Bernie Sanders, I mean, on the other side of the political spectrum in that respect.
Yeah. Yeah, But he's also he's a smart guy, even though he's you know, I think he's a little bit you know, he he goes in different directions and sometimes I think, oh my god, he's so insightful, and other times he says things that I'm like, oh my god, But he does you know, he interviews you know, theoretical physicists, and he has thoughtful conversations and my son and others that I know, and I enjoy listening to him. So I'm not this isn't just a complete, you know, sort
of dismissional of Joe. Yeah. I do think the Democratic Party has done a horrible job of outreach to men. And I think it's not just about Kamala Harris failing to go on Joe Rogan. Although I think that was a mistake. I don't think that that's unique to Kamala Harris and her campaign, right, I think the Democratic Party as a party has done a really poor job for fifty years at outreach to men.
So I want to talk. I want to unpack that a little bit, because I mean, it connects to the manto sphere, and it connects to what's happening with podcasts and how media is now consumed. And that's been again an expertise of yours. It's sort of the it's the intersection of race and violence and gender, but also the intersection of gender and media. But there's this larger trend line that also connects, and that is men are not
doing well right. I mean, suicide rates four x, the addiction rates three x, twelve times more likely a man to be incarcerated. You look at obesity rates, dropout rates, you look at graduation rates, you look at discipline, you look at all these larger issues you've been focused on in terms of violence. I mean this, this is a crisis, arguably. I mean this is a serious, serious crisis the state of men. And it's not just white men, it's young men.
I mean, what is going on in this space? And what have you?
I mean you've you've.
You've talked in terms of hyper masculinity. You and my wife full disclosure, were part of a film you guys worked on together around women and girls called Misrepresentation. But then you followed up a decade ago in this space with a film called The mascul Living about masculinity, hyper masculinity. Man up, be a man, you know, and you called out in that film a lot of these stats a decade plus ago, And so I think you're right to call out the Democratic Party. Where the hell have we
been on this topic? We see where the Republicans have gone with it and to exploit, I think a little bit of it, not necessarily to solve for some of it. But what are these trend lines? What do they mean to you? And what have you gleaned from? And what the hell is going on with young men in this country and maybe around the world.
Sure well, I mean, there's no doubt that there's all kinds of indict you know, indications that a lot of young men are not doing well. And then you just name some of those statistics. And some of your other guests have talked about this subject and and thoughtfully and and you know, and it's all good. By the way, I do want to say one of the things that that is frustrating to me is that feminism is not the enemy of men.
Right.
It's like, if you want to help men, if you want if you want boys to thrive, if you want boys to have better lives, better relationships, better self regard and self care to take care of themselves, feminism is not the uh antithesis of that. Feminism is giving giving a pathway. Can I also let me just a related point, the men's health movement, which is a small but growing movement of of of people who are looking at ways
in which cultural ideal ideas about manhood. And this is again around the world, it's not just in the United States, but have contributed to men's health problems, both in terms of risk taking behavior and certainly in terms of health seeking behavior. In other words, men not going to the doctor, men not going to the dentist, men not going to therapy, you know, dealing with self medication rather like through the bottle or through drugs, rather than going to get you know,
professional health like therapy, because that's unmanly to do. In other words, in other words, the impediment to doing that is a belief about manhood. Like a real man sucks it up, a real man just deals with it. The men's health movement, which is an important movement to say the least, is directly connected to the feminist led women's
health movement. In fact, one of the major events in the women's health movement was the publication in nineteen seventy two of a book called Our Bodies, Ourselves, published by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, which was one of the first interventions into the public conversation about how women's health was affected by gender. You know ideas about femininity and how the healthcare system was set up for men
and for women. Anyhow, the men's health women Some of the major figures in it, including my friend and colleague Terry Reel, who wrote the first major book about men's depression called I Don't Want to Talk about It, Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression in nineteen ninety seven. People like Terry Reel talk openly about how his ideas were informed by feminist you know, intellectuals and activists and practitioners in the women's health space, in the therapy space.
And yet the average guy who cares about women, you know, men's health, and who or listen or listens to manisphere figures talk about how feminists hate men. They have no idea that some of the most thoughtful things, you know, thoughtful people about men's health are direct products of feminist ideas and feminist activism. And I think the reason why I think that's important is because we have we have
too much artificial division between men and women. And I think the Right thrives on this division, and it's it's it's dividing people from each other rather than bringing them to And I think part of what I do in my work, and I think you do it as well. But I think certainly what I do in my work is because I come from a fairly traditional background, and I have all this experience in sports culture, in the
military and working with traditional men. In fifty I've been all fifty states, you know, I work in Red States. I work with really traditional men in every you know sector. You can imagine men can have these conversations and with each other. With women, it's not like it's not so polarized. But I think if you go into these manisphere spaces or the political spaces, or Fox, or you watch Fox, or you listen to talk radio, conservative talk radio, which
I've been listening. I started listening in Rush Lombard like nineteen ninety. I know this stuff really really well.
We had on one of the OJEZU was the number two on radio, Michael Savage, was that right where you're sitting just a few weeks ago on the podcast.
That's right about that history as well, that's right they and by the way, these guys created a formula that made a ton of money for them and a lot of other people, and dividing people and and making caricatures of people that they don't agree with Rush Limbaugh did it fabulously and ridiculed and mocked, you know, feminists and women who are trying to be treated with respect.
So you're basically, I mean, so this goes I think this is This is the real dialectic right on this topic. It's a difficult one because the people to see it it's one or the other. It's a binary that somehow it's a zero sum game, that that you are somehow diminishing the feminist movement if you're trying to elevate young men, or if you're elevating or the opposite. I mean, what how do you start to there's more of an abundance mindset. What's good for the feminist movement is good for young men.
Is the point I guess you're making. Is that the point you're making?
Yeah, yes, but it's all I have to say. It's complicated because people can say, well, there's only so many jobs, and if women are getting those jobs, then there's going to be harder you know, competition for the men. But you know what, if you believe in merit, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in fairness, and you believe in fairness. I think fairness is to me the governing issue, right. I believe in fairness plat out women. If women are smarter than men, if they work harder,
if they're more talented, then they deserve the job. It's like you don't deserve the job.
Just because aristocracy in that respect is certainly showcasing itself an education system, and certainly higher education, which women are on pace in half a decade to be two to one of college graduates in that that's right.
And by the way, anti intellectualism is deep in American culture, especially among men. The idea that if you're somehow smart, you're a wimp, or you're condescending because you're educated, you're condescending to people who don't have an education. And I appreciate that certain members of of you know, the educated classes can be clunky, to say the least in terms of the way they communicate with people like with with with a less you know, less pedigree in terms of
their education. I don't think I'm like that, but I do think that that's a real thing. But the idea that being somehow intellectual, being you know, somebody who reads, who engages with ideas is somehow makes you weak and soft as a man, or less than a real man. This is the most self defeating idiocy that I could ever imagine, and yet it's fed daily in the in the popular discourse, especially in you know, right wing talk radio.
So what the hell is going on with young men?
Then?
What's going on?
Well? I think it's a complicated world. I think I think a lot of women, for example, have been pioneering new ways of being women in a in a in a in a very diverse and changing you know, sort of historical social you know context, And I think a lot of men are as well. We're just trying to figure it out, Like what does it mean to be a good father? What does it mean to be a good husband? What does it mean to be a strong man? If the historically being a strong man meant you're a
protector of your family and a provider. But then you know your wife, say you're a heterosexual man and you're married, what if your wife is like making more money than you, what does it mean to be a provider at that point? You know what I'm saying, Like, I mean, what does it mean to protect your kids? When people are dropping off their kids at school and they're worried that their kids are going to get shot in a school shooting. So are we protecting our kids effectively or are we actually,
through bad policy, making our kids more vulnerable. So I think I think guys want to do the right thing. They want to be respected, they want to be strong, but they don't really know exactly how to go about doing it. And because because of the changes in women's lives, And again I'm making a wildly general statement, and it's complicated by class and race and ethnicity and all these other categories. I appreciate that intersectional thinking is not just
a that's not just a slogan. It's real. It's like people have complex identities, right, and they occupy complex social positions. But I think a lot of women have been doing incredible things to sort of upend centuries, millennia of tradition, and as a result, a lot of men are completely dissentered and are still trying to figure out what does it mean? What do I mean? What does it mean to be me? What does it mean to be strong? And I think some men are drawn to And again
I'm not dismissing this. I think it's okay. You know, some men are drawn to more traditional ideas about manhood in part because they're they're they're simpler, and they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're less comp they're just less less complicated, like so, for example, celebrating physical strength, I mean, I mean, and by the way, Trump in his you know, his way, he's no, you know, he's no intellectual, right, but he's he has a visceral understanding
of some of this. And so and the Trump campaign how how they go to UFC fights and then Trump walks into a UFC fight and everybody's cheering. It's like yes, and it's like that re establishes that Trump is the man's candidate. The Republican Party is the men's party. And they just doubled down. The Republicans double down on this in the twenty twenty for r NC. And it was like, to me, it was like a cartoonish, hyper masculine spectacle.
It was I was embarrassed by it. But it were shirt yes, yes, and and and Dana White saying he's the best, you know, he's the biggest badass. And one person after another going up and saying Donald Trump is the strongest man I've ever met, and it's just I was just embarrassed by this. But it worked, worked, It worked, especially for young men.
But you knew it was going to work because you wrote books on this. Yes, you wrote a book about Clinton and Hillary I mean about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. You wrote a book about masculinity and leadership.
I did. Yes, I saw this coming decades ago. I mean it wasn't. And by the way, Reagan, I mean, how do you think Reagan was marketed to the I mean what your predecessor as governor of California. How Reagan was marketed to the to the American population was he was a cowboy riding in from the West to save a degenerated, you know, liberal establishment that's soft and weak, and and you know the Iranian hostage crisis, and rom Reagan was going to come in. John Wayne wasn't available
Ronald Reagan, and and it started. It didn't start there, but it accelerated with the Reagan administration and then for the last forty plus years. One of the biggest challenges that the Democrats haven't risen to is how do you, on the one hand, represent the interests of the ascendant classes of women and people of color and LGBTQ and hang on to the one of the key parts of the New Deal coalition, which is, you know, blue collar white men and how do you do that at the
same time. And it's really a complicated challenge.
So what's the.
Answer to that? Ha ha?
I mean, because I mean it goes back to the Democratic Party. It's interesting Democrat at the DNC, they didn't necessarily platform. They platform pretty much every group, but they didn't platform a group that's struggling and struggling to be heard and identified as struggling, right, that are looking for meaning and purpose and mission that you, for a long period of time have recognized are feeling these pressures. There
are these macrol pressures. I mean, what is I mean, why do you think the Democratic Party did not meet that moment? Do you think the Democratic Party is waking up to that moment? Maybe it goes back to my question a little while ago about what does this moment in this conversation mean? Why do you feel like is there a political is it because the political opening in the space, more people are having this conversation about men
than they have in the past. That's actually illuminating even more of your work as well.
Yeah, there's so many pieces to that. I would say, I would say the crisis of right wing populism and trump Ism is focusing a lot of people's minds. I think a lot of people who were kind of asleep at the switch a little bit, and they thought, you know, the Democrats could just keep going without really addressing this complex set of identity issues, especially involving men, without being seen to somehow be you know, selling out women, you know. And I think the consultant class, I think I think
a lot of political consultants haven't been on this. They haven't understood this dynamic, the dynamic of men and speaking two men and how I mean Steve Bannon, one of your formal guests, Steve Bennan says, everything is narrative. This
isn't about ideology. It's about narrative. And I mean, I'm one of the co founders of an organization called the Young Men Research Project, right, and we've been doing we started in early twenty four and way before the election, trying to push the Democratic Party, but not just the Democratic Party, journalists, people in the media to think about the young men's vote, to think about how to speak to young men because we were worried about the slide
over to the to the right of young men. And by the way, young women move into the left and you know, politically and young men moving to the right. But it's not ideological. In other words, the same men who voted for Trump, but young men, many of them, they're pro choice on abortion rights, and you've been a strong leader on abortion rights and unapologetically, which is by the way, what we need. We need unapologetic leadership from
the Democratic side on things like women's rights. But when it comes to you know, strong labor unions, when it comes to action on the climate crisis, when it comes to increase of minimum wage and the issue after issues, young men are progressive.
Way though there's some interesting state wide elections overwhelming they went for Trump but supported a portion of reproductive freedom and supported minimum wage increases. That's right, same exact voter.
Because it was about identity, not ideology. In other words, there the identity politics. This is what identity politics are always The Democrats are already are always accused of playing identity politics when they talk about issues relating to you know, women or people of color or LGBTQ or something. But the Republicans have been playing identity politics with white male
voters for fifty years. Richard Nixon started playing identity politics when he started talking about the forgotten man, and you know they and that silent majority queens.
Yes, yeah, they've only been playing those.
Games exactly identity politics. But it worked again in the twenty twenty floor election. And I think a lot of young men and a lot of young men were basically being told that the party that cares about you and the party that is the men's party is the Republican Party, and Trump is the man's candidate, and the Democrats are the party of women and non masculine men, right, And that's that. That was the mainstream message to young men and young men who were low engagement voters. In other words,
what does that mean? Low engagement voters? It means they don't pay close attention to politics. They don't read, they don't engage in political discourse, they don't you know, read think pieces in the Atlantic. You know what I'm saying.
They're not where I am every night on MSNBC or Fox or you know, Newsmax or CNN.
No, but they're but then, but they're hearing on and by the way. One of the things that we do in the Young Men's Research Project is that you we're looking at all these different ways that the media ecosphere that young men are inhabiting are not necessarily overtly ideological. In theres a lot of them. They're just talking about comedy, they're talking about working out, they're talking about you know,
eating healthy and good, you know, relationship sports. But then they throw in some politics, like like they're throw in a little bit of politics, and like, yeah, Trump, Trump's a guy, He's a guy's guy, you know, and then this fight fight fight, which is you know, by the way, let me just say I was impressed.
I mean, I mean it was shot that was extraordinary in the moment, yeah.
Knowledge, yeah, and so good good for him. It's like, but but then Charlie Kirk comes out and says, if you're a man, after this, after the after the assassination attempt and Trump's response to it, if you're a man and you don't vote for Trump, you're not a man. That to me is that's embarrassing to me, Charlie Kirk, you know, I'm sorry, that's embarrassing.
Oh yeah, we had him on the show as well as you know, yes.
No, no, And again let me say also, I think it's great talking to people, having dialogue with people I have arguments with and discussions with people that I don't agree with all the time, including men, you know, around some of this fraught subject matter. It's fine, good, let's go, let's go, let's have a discussion.
Let me ask you about just the me too movement. You know, this sort of sendency of consciousness in this space, and then there were action to it. Do you think there was there's been an overreaction to it. Do you think there's been appropriate reaction to it? Do you think people have understated the power of the me too movement? Where are you, I mean, just on that spectrum of observation, acuity, interest,
your own activity in that space. Where do you come out in terms of just your experience with that movement and with where we are today?
Okay, I think I think we need to, like one way to think about this is kind of widen the aperture a little bit and think about this in the longer terms. For thousands of years, men assaulted women in families, in relationships, in marriages. Marriage was leg you know, rape was legal within marriage, including in the West until very recently.
I mean in the UK it was only allowed in nineteen ninety one rape within marriage, And in the United States as late as the nineteen eighties, there were six states where it was still legal for a man to rape his his wife. I mean seriously, I mean, we weren't so long ago cleaning up some statute language on that, even in California. So I completely understand what you're saying, right, So there's still some language in that space exactly, and
to this day. And there's hundreds of millions of people who live in countries where it's still legal for men to rape his own wife. So there's been thousands of years of men brutalizing women and getting away with it
within absolute impunity. And finally, you have in the in the twentieth century, you have a movement, you know, whether it's the women's movement more broadly and then more specifically the anti sexual assault movement that started really taking off in the nineteen seventies and eighties, as well as the anti domestic violence movement. So these are very recent movements. I mean, for somebody who's twenty years old, the eighties might sound like a long time ago, but let me
just say, it's not that long ago. You know. I was just listening to us like a mixed list from the eighties, and I was like, that was my I was in my twenties during the eighties, and I was like, I can I can say I could I know every word to these songs anyhow. Anyhow, the point is, it's not that long lack of seagulls.
Just Duran, Duran, I won't die anyway. That's another conversation.
Yeah, so, but the point exactly. But the point is you have these movements organized against something that's been going on for thousands of years, and finally, you know, giving a voice to women, reforming the laws. And then because of the Internet, because the you know, the incredible digital technology that allowed the voices of women to be heard in a way that they had never ever had the
opportunity to be heard. One of like the Me Too movement happened in part not just on the ground because of women coming forward, but it became possible because of the technology of communication and the digital revolution. So many of the women who came forward to say, this is what happened to me, this is my truth, this is
my experience. Yes, those women were speaking not just for themselves but for literally literally billions of women and girls who had never ever had a voice for thousands of years. And so was there were there examples where it went over the top and there and where where you know, due process for men who were accused of crimes, you know, was was not taken seriously. Yeah, I'm sure there was, and I and I'm empathetic, and but I always say
this because I do gender violence prevention education. I've been doing this for a long time. If you're a man who has been, you know, falsely accused of some crime that you didn't commit, it's a horrible thing. And there but for the grace of God, go I and other men. So I'm not saying it's okay, it's horrible and it's unacceptable. But you know, the vast majority of sexual assault is never even reported, much less falsely reported. So I think a lot of men have this falsely inflated sense of
their vulnerability to false accusations. And what ends up happening is that this narrative develops that all these women are coming forward, all they can ruin a guy's life easily. And meanwhile, we know how how much, how difficult it is for a woman to come forward, and how unlikely it is that she's going to call that upon herself
unless it really something really happened. Now, having said that, I do think there were some excesses, and there were some statements, certainly by women and others, that were dismissive of men's concerns about being unfairly targeted or falsely accused or what have you. But I think that I think overall it was a step forward. But it's messy. Life is messy, and social change is messy, and I think we have to give these and I'm just going to
say this. I mean, I'm not, you know, bizarre who can make these, you know, issue these kind of edicts. But I would say we have to give each other a little bit of a break. I mean, we're all struggling to try to be treated with respect and dignity, try to live you know, lives of you know, you know, of dignity and in relationships, and with all these complexities of race and gender and and and and sexuality swirling about,
it's not easy and navigating that space. And so I think what's happening with a lot of young men is that is that they're really confused, They're really be fuddled. And I think of a lot of adult men are too. So it's not just the young guys are befuddled. And so part of the reason why so many young guys are befuddled is because the men, the adult men that they look to for guidance, are themselves often bill bewildered.
What am I supposed to say? How am I supposed to My wife wants me to be strong, she wants me to be powerful, but but but I'm also vulnerable. And when I express vulnerability then she's uneasy about that because she wants me to be strong, and I'm not sure what to do. And what you know this is, this is you know therapists. You know, for example, couples therapists deal with I'm not a therapist, right, but I know that couple therapists deal with this every day. And
and and Terry Reel, who's this brilliant you know couple therapists. He's, by the way, Bruce Springsteen and Patty his wife, Patty's couple therapists. And I'm saying that because Bruce Springsteen wrote the literally wrote the forward to Terry Reel's latest book,
which is called we it's about relationships. And Bruce Springsteen is is like he's like a guy's guy, Like he's like the prototypical American guy, right, he is, but he's also extremely self reflexive and vulnerable, and he's it doesn't make him any less of a of a of a sort of alpha rock star to be able to say, you know, he needed therapy, and he needed therapy for his own stuff with his own father and his relationship with his wife, and you know, and it was really
important to have support in this in the sort of environment. And this this notion that vulnerability is somehow weakness, This is one of the biggest lies that young men get sold. But there's the pressure on young men to be sort of sucking it up and pretending that they've got it all going on because of because of the narrative that
they're hearing. Is that a real man does that. And again, some of those manisphere of figures that we've been talking about, including by the way, Donald Trump, who says it all the time, you know, you don't admit weakness, you don't acknowledge mistakes. To me, that's that's a sign of total insecurity rather than strength. But I think we need adult men to model strong adult men to model vulnerability, not as weakness, but as I'm confident enough to say that
I don't have it all figured out. I'm confident enough to say that, you know what, I make mistakes too, but I'm going to I'm just still going to get back up on the on the horse. I'm still gonna do my thing, and and and hearing professional athletes say it, I think it's one of the reasons why it's so powerful to hear like professional male athletes in this case who have mental health challenges, who will say, you know what, I have panic attacks. I'm a I'm a I'm a
great professional athlete, and you know, look at me. I'm you know, I'm I've succeeded at the highest level in my sport, but I have issues and and I and I and and that's so okay. Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer men's swimmer of all time. This is really a powerful part of this. And last thing I want to say about all this, I appreciate again, I appreciate all
the opportunities you're giving me to say these things. Sometimes people will say to me or to other men who talk about the issues in this way, they'll say, you're trying to make men soft and weak. And if you listen to Fox's News, they say it all the time, the worsification of America. These the liberals are trying to worsify America. They're trying to make men soft and weak. And it's to me, it's a cartoon. It's like watching a satire. But I reject the idea that I and
others are trying to make men soft and weak. I think I want to be strong. I think I'm a strong man. I think that I want my son to be a strong man, and he is a strong young man. The question is not whether we want men to be strong. The question is how do you define strength? And how do you define strength? Is it this cartoonish ability to impose your will on another person and dominate? Is that strength? Really? In the twenty first century, are we supposed to take
that seriously as the definition of strength? What about moral courage? What about courage to do something even though there's going to be a consequence for you that's negative because it's the right thing to do. What about social courage, which is to say, speaking up in the face of you know, abuse. You know, it's whether it's you know, your friends of yours making derogatory comments, or online spaces where guys are being really disrespectful to girls or women and calling them
out and saying, hey, that's not cool. What about you know, resilience in the face of adversity. These are all these are evidence of strength and courage and positive, you know, positive positive qualities. I think we need to say to young men and older men, we want you to be strong, but we want you to expand your definition of strength. And the reason why that's so I think so helpful
is because it's positive and aspirational. It's calling men into good behavior rather than calling them out for bad behavior. And I think if you call them into good behavior and say, we need more men with the guts to speak up, we need more young men who the courage to say misogyny is not cool. Treating women with disrespect is not going to get you my respect. It's not going to get you my admiration because you know what,
you've got some issues. If we had more men who are willing to say that, and young men willing to say that, then we would we would begin to counteract some of these harmful things that are happening in men's lives. And I think a lot of young men seek connection,
they want relationships, they want intimacy in their lives. But if they're going down the route of hardening up, getting tough, you know, being sort of you know, hiding in their shell, if you will, and inhabiting this angry world of the manisphere and the sort of the right wing populist movement, that's not going to get them what they want. That's not going to get them the love and the connection and the intimacy that they crave. So I think we have to say it in terms of men's self interest
and boys self interest. It's in women's self interest. Gender equality and gender justice is obviously in women's self interest, but it's also in men's self interest. And I think if people can hear that, I think we have you know, we've made a lot of progress.
Jackson Katz, thanks for joining us in this podcast A hell of a way and close out this podcast. Thank you for your work, thank you for your advocacy, thank you for your clarity, your conviction, and thank you for being at this for decades and decades.
Thanks Governor, and thanks thanks so much for giving me this opportunity and for having these conversations right on. I really appreciate that, that leadership and that thought leadership and your commitment. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you,