July 3, 2025 • 48 mins
The statistics are shocking - men are facing a plague of loneliness, depression and mental health issues, made worse by societal messaging that tells them to bottle it up. Liana talks to returning guest Avrum Weiss, a clinical psychologist and author of the book Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men's Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships, about the crises men are facing, how they developed and what can be done to repair the damage.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello, listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am
(00:29):
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayings
for going good crazy this week. Okay, I'm a bit
late on this topic because Men's Mental Health Month was
last month, but it took a while to sing schedules
with a guest, and he's a great returning guest. You
may remember Avromwei's, PhD, author of Hidden Plain Sight, How
(00:51):
men's fears of women shape their intimate relationships, from the
last time we talked about men's mental health. But he'll
be on very shortly to discuss specifically the menosphere and
men's mental health, and that interview ran long, so I'm
going to do very briefly in toron of the topic,
so we can get right to the good stuff. Men
are twice as likely as women to die from preventable causes,
(01:15):
meaning death related to smoking, excessive drinking, and poor diet.
Men are almost three times as likely to die by
suicide than women. Fortunately, those rates are going down, but
men are also more likely to die of accidents than women,
and drug toxicity deaths accounted for two out of every
five of those accidents. Now. Despite this, despite these outcomes,
(01:40):
men perceive their mental health to be better than women do.
As of twenty twenty four, fifty one point eight percent
of Canadian men reported their mental health as excellent or
very good, compared to forty four point one percent of women.
Men were also less likely than women to report fair
or poor mental health, and contrary to exceedingly popular belief,
(02:04):
men were less likely than women to say they often
or always felt lonely I repeat. Men were less likely
than women to say they always are often felt lonely,
and it was a small difference. But they were also
more likely than Canadian women to say they rarely or
never felt lonely, and that was a significant difference. Fifty
three percent of Canadian men say they rarely or never
(02:28):
felt lonely compared to forty six point four percent of
Canadian women. Granted, this data didn't include the Canadian territories,
just the provinces. That does skew the number some however, overall,
based on the numbers, we do have men seem to
be doing better than women but end up with worse outcomes.
(02:48):
And I mean, the big question there is why we
know that men are less likely to seek therapy and
wait longer to start when they are struggling. Get into
some of the reasons with Avram after the break. But
that's where the manosphere comes in. Manosphere content is an
easy way for men to engage in self help through
(03:11):
pretty slickly produced videos that you know, primarily teach them
that you're not the problem. Various other things are. And
again we'll get into that with our expert psychotherapist Avram Weiss,
author of Hidden in Plane Sight, How Men's spheres of
women shape their intimate relationships. He'll be on after the
(03:35):
break to Edgemacajus, Do you have a story you think
would be good for the show. Are you interested in
sponsoring the show? Leanna at not therapyshow dot com is
my email. Not therapyshow dot com is the website. There's
a contact form on there or at not therapy show
on social media. So it's time. We're gonna get into
the manisphere and mental health with guests Avramwis and it's
(03:57):
not therapy.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
No radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two one one or
go to two one one dot CA. We're back in
this therapy. I'm still in a cursor. I'm still the
not a therapist. I am still talking about Men's Mental
(04:29):
Health Month, getting in very very late, but I wanted
to wait for this guest. And you'll recognize abrumwise from
previous episodes on men's content. Avroom does an ongoing blog
on Psychology Today about men's stuff, which is excellent. Abroom
does not pull punches.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
But that's a polite way of saying, yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I think that's what works to start. Avrom Is. I
do find with men, if you do the positive, the
suppor word of it doesn't work, right, it doesn't land,
And so I.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Mean you're offer a modification of that. Yeah, sure, I
think it works to the extent you mean it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But what doesn't work is people trying to blow smoke
and not really being real yeah, or anybody, and then
they're offended that the person's you know, bullshit meter goes
off and they say, well, look what I.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Said, right, Yeah, And now there is a certain amount
of you don't know me enough to say these sort
of positive things about me. You do have to spend
some time working. But then you get into the families
and you get into where I kind of want to
officially start today. Is this this fear, this understandable fear
(05:53):
that people have of the manosphere content out there. And
I wonder if we can start there, because there are
good reasons for this. Heere what makes the menosphere different
from just people like you who just work with men.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Well, I would like to think that's not even comparable.
But here's the common ground we have. I'll I'll be generous.
I think we both are accurately perceiving the dire straits
that many men, the internal pain and suffering that many
(06:32):
men are experiencing today. A, I'm listing commonalities first. Differences
will take longer. B. We care about men and want
better for them. Those might be the commonalities. The differences are.
(06:52):
I think they tend to blame women, and I am
extremely careful to not leave any room to be perceived
as so. The introduction to my book goes to great
lengths to basically say men are afraid of women, but
that's not because of anything women did to them, right,
(07:13):
So I think that's a fundamental difference, And I think
the reason that's a problem is that if you try
to improve your own lot in life by focusing on
blaming other people, it's not going to go well.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
The book, the book Avram's reference, Hidden plain sight, how
men's spheres of women shape their intimate relationships. For people
who want to know, it's like book, we'll talk. I'll
say that again later for those listening. So, yeah, the
blaming women element of the minosphere is definitely a thing,
but there is also real blame on the men themselves,
(07:47):
Like I am struck by this content how much they
run down their viewer, Like, yeah, ahead in.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
A particular way that's important. They do it by suggesting
to men that they are feminine meaning not masculine, and
so they are. This is a dilemma that men have
to start with, and so they're really you know, if
you can get a strong enough fulcrum and an enormous
(08:17):
block of granite, you know, you can split so that
the split is there. Men experience that dilemma to start with,
and they are taking advantage of that split and making
men feel bad about themselves instead of a positive message,
which would be, you know what, gender is not the
most important part of who you are. You have characteristics
(08:39):
that we would think of as stereotypically masculine, which is fine.
You have characteristics that we would think of a stereots
and guess what, in different settings, each one of those
are really helpful, yeap, And it either don't have to
hate yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Even saying gender is not the most important part of
who you are is a contentious statement these day. So
I want to pause on that because I agree with you.
I absolutely agree with you. And that is the thing.
People can cherry pick the science on gender and psychology
to make it say whatever they want. These days. They
find this one paper that says this. It's a complete outlier. Right,
(09:19):
You've got twenty five other papers that say this one thing.
You have this one paper that says, oh no, and
tie it into It's also Pride Month here in Canada,
I think in the US as well, And so the
whole talk. One of the things I noticed in a
lot of men's content is they immediately start by mentioning,
you know, we live in this age of pronouns as
(09:41):
opposed to pronouns having existed as a part of speech
as long as there's been speech, Right, what is it
about that we are obsessed with it as a culture
right now? When you're absolutely right. Gender, That's something I
had to learn. Gender is not even in the top
(10:02):
ten most important parts of who I am.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's hard to separate the signal from the noise. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
because there's the signal of people who experience themselves as
gender fluids speaking up, but that is often drowned out
by the noise of reactionary right wing people using that. So,
for example, one of my favorite examples, and I never
(10:26):
remember the numbers, I say, there are something like half
a million NCAA Division one athletes, of whom seven are transgender.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
So really that's the main topic, and that's how we're
going to choose our leaders is how they treat those
seven people. I'm not even touching for a moment how
we should treat them. I'm just talking about the noise
that gets generated. So twenty years ago it was about
gay people. They use gay people to drum up a
lot of hatred so that people became more accepting and
(10:59):
tolerant of gay Oh we need somebody else say hey,
oh how But doesn't matter that there's only seven of them? Yeah,
because it creates a firestorm, and it's not even about
gender or promoans and the Democrats unfortunately played into it
by making it a bigger And I'm not saying that
it's not an issue. I'm just saying it's seven kids. Yeah,
(11:20):
let's try to have a proportional response.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah. And being an NCAA athlete is not a human
right either. There's a real jumble of rights versus you know,
surviving versus thriving right, right, and there is I've been
hearing from an increasing number of clients that have been
persuaded by this content that because there is this discussion
(11:48):
of how trans and lumbinary people and gender fluid people
fit into the world, that the world hates men, and
that that's not even an equation, that's not a balance.
One thing has nothing to do with the other other
people getting Like expanding the pie doesn't mean you get
(12:12):
a smaller slice.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Unless you're a very concrete thinker. It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
And that's very interesting because that's another stereotype of men,
that men are more concrete thinkers than others. And we
know based on personality tests. Yeah, it's fairly easily distributed.
So go with this, but.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We give you a summary of the science on gender.
So there was an article published this year. So a
metal analytics study is a study across studies, so that
way you can have more numbers more people. This meta
analytics study looked at hundreds of studies on gender versus
environment within n meaning the number of subjects of two
(12:49):
million people, and concluded that gender is overwhelmingly learned, like
ninety something percent learned. Okay, Now, I personally find that
a little difficult to believe because I have two six
year old grandsons live to play with trucks, and then
(13:11):
I know their parents didn't put that in them. So
I'm not ready to go full bore and say it's
just learned. But I think we should at least honor
the science and be interested in the same thing is
true of course about race. If you look at your
DNA and my DNA and the DNA of somewhe a
different race, guess what they overlap by what is it?
(13:31):
Ninety nine sixty something? Crazy. So we are overwhelmingly more
alike in gender and race. Whatever you think of the science,
it's very clear that we are overwhelmingly more There's more
that we have in common than divides us.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, and as one of those people who never liked
typically girly things, you know, I was big into transformers
as a kid, which intersects with the whole truck thing
very very well. But I mean there is and this
is what we get. We all have sort of an
innate personality which is unique. And then there are those
(14:09):
social expectations, and that's what seems to be the crisis
with I'll separate men in masculinity for the purpose of
this discussion, right, because there's masculinity what society tells us
men should be right and that women should not be,
(14:31):
which is the other side of it. And then there's
the individual men. And the reason I wanted to have
you back on is because I've been hearing more and
more and more and more the world hates men's, society
hates men, culture hates men. And I can understand how
if somebody truly believes that, and they're getting it from
(14:55):
content Like you said, you know, Manosphet creators, I think,
in their own way do care about men. They care
about their money as well, but they care about me.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I'm willing to give them that. I think they general agree.
None of them invited me to be on their show,
so I don't really know that, but I'm willing to.
I wish they would. We'd have a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I've talked to some of these guys and they are
very driven by their own pain and their own experience.
Their don't belief that they overcame it. So I think
that that benefit of the doubt is very useful. But
where do you even begin if someone came to you
and said the world hates men or this world radically
(15:39):
prefers women, Like, where do you even start with that?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Okay, great question. I want to take it a level deeper. Yeah,
one of my favorite studies of all time. So I
think what we have to go deeper. We have to
look at what is the personal agenda here? Why is
this so important to some people? One of my favorite
studies they assembled a group of people and they showed
(16:05):
them a group of They gave them a test, a
psychological test that measured how high their level of homophobic
attitudes were, let's say zero to town yeah, And then
they showed them a series of erotic pictures, some with
men with women. You know where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I know this study, some with.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Men with women, some with women with women, and some
with men with men. And wouldn't you know it, the
higher your score on the homophobic scale, you just held
the pictures of the guys with guys just a little
bit longer, just a little more interesting to you. So
this is what therapists have been saying for over one
(16:46):
hundred years, that this hatred is fueled by unresolved So
the the fuel that drives homophobia is self loathing. That
drives I always get the word, but I think it's androgyny.
It's the right word, is self loathing. And so there
(17:09):
is truth to the fact that there are places in
the world in which men aren't treated in an unfair way,
no question about it. And I would point to my
own field as one of the worst offenders. So I
have been doing workshops for therapists around the country, challenging
them on their lack of training and biases in working
(17:35):
with men, and I love doing these workshops. One of
the things I do in the workshops is a little provocative.
Is I ask people, how many of you like men?
Raise your hand? And there are typically about a third
of the people in the room who do not therapists
who do not raise their hands, And I'm asking them
(17:57):
if I had said, how many of you don't like
Africa American people? Yeah, would you think it was a
problem that a third of you who didn't raise your
hands are working with African American clients. Why don't you
think it's a problem that your countertransference of about men,
your hostile, angry, bitter countertransference you're not dealing with. But
(18:18):
you still think you can be a good therapist to men.
So I read stuff in my field about men that
is so critical. Yeah, and I'm on a bit of
a crusade to challenge my field to do better. But
be that as it may, you still have the world
and live in the world you live in, right, But
(18:40):
once you're convince me that the world's not fair to men.
Of course, my question is I see what you're saying.
I see the truth in what you're saying. Do you
want to talk about what to do about that? So
I don't think you and I are going to change
the world. And you still have to live in this world.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Right, And there's still that two thirds of the room
that doesn't have an issue with men. And that's what
I say. The world is not the world is too
big for us to comprehend. It's completely fair that you
have felt a hostility to men in the part of
the world that you have experienced. That's the third of therapists.
(19:19):
And yeah, I've heard some of the things that therapists
have said to people, and my jaw drops, yeah, you know.
And that brings me to my next question. I wonder
if we should take a break and come back to it,
because it's about the way men's therapy is presented. It's
wrapped up in the bow of domestic violence prevention, violence
(19:44):
prevention safety.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Why would that turn anybody off?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Why would that think there was a bias here right
to stage to stage men at sort of the beginning
of the whole process is you are a potential threat.
You are a predator. I want to talk to Avermerized
when we come back on It's not Therapy. The author
of Hidden in Plain Site, How Men's and Women Shape
their Intimate Relationships, and a frequent contributor on Psychology Today, Avram,
(20:11):
can you hold over the break and we'll come back
and talk. Sure, awesome, We'll be back with that. Why
we make men out to be predators and honor a
Men's Mental Health Month And It's not therapy?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot C.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in It's not therapy. I'm still lean A Kursner. I'm
still not a therapist. We are still talking to Avram Weiss.
(20:49):
Avram has been on the show before talking about men's
issues to see, author of Hidden in Plain Site, How
Men's and Women Shape their Intimate Relationships. He is a PhD.
Much everybody I talked to is a PhD if they're
not directly affected by an issue. And he's a frequent
contributor Psychology today and before the break, Avram and I
(21:10):
were talking about wrapping the stake of men's mental health
in the bacon of men are predators. Let's pre violence.
You know, the whole dilute model thing, the power and
control wheel. The men are the problem that I think
is what part fuels the the psycho the psychology fields bias.
(21:34):
You know, you go in and you do a dilute
model workshop, which for people who do not know, is
the idea that violence is gendered. It's about power and control.
And they deliberately have all the language be men what
men do to women, because the primary clientele is men
who have had their first run in with the legal
(21:55):
system because they have been charged with a violent crime,
usually against a woman. Now, Avram, I can understand why
guys would see this because now thanks to the Internet,
everything's broken containment. Everything is out there for everywhere I
can see men go see. This is society telling me
I'm the problem. What would you say to that.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Well, let's let's start with some uncomfortable truths. Forty percent
of women are sexually assaulted by someone in their lifetime,
which is a number that no matter how many times
I hear, I still can't actually wrap my mind. And
of course that's overwhelmingly by men. Yeah, so that's a problem,
and no matter how much attention we pay to it,
(22:40):
I promise you if forty percent of men were sexually
assaulted by women, we would have done something about it
a long time ago. So I think we have to
start with that very uncomfortable truth. Now that said, obviously,
because forty percent of women are assaulted does not mean
that the majority of men are predators.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
That's false math, because the average predator does it to
seven different women before.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They get caught, right, Yeah, so a great deal of
damage is done to men by the assumption that every
man is a potential predator.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
So, another very uncomfortable truth, which I have certainly gotten
a lot of crap for talking about, is that statistically,
women initiate violence in relationships more than men do. Now,
men are more dangerous. Men initiates violence, it's more likely
(23:38):
to end up with a woman in the hospital. But
it's not a one sided problem, and it's not just
that it's unfair to men to talk about. We're never
going to get anywhere with it if we just think
about it. In victim perpetrate, right, and so unless we
understand the dynamics. And I would not very much honestly
(24:00):
say that men's fears of women are a large part
of the dynamics that go into men's violence towards women.
Men are terrified in intimate relationships, don't have the coping skills,
are largely isolated and without support, and they blow. And
I'm not rationalizing or justifying that. I'm trying to understand it.
(24:24):
It's obviously not okay, I'm not condoning it. But we
can either just say bad boy and punish, or we
can try to understand and educated inform men to have alternatives.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, I mean, the thing I dig a lot of
crap for saying is, look, if men are the perpetrators
of all this violence, all this bad stuff, then we
need to start focusing much younger. And yeah, and we do. See.
I mean, I'm sure you've seen the studies where girls
are sort of ignored. It's the try hard messaging from
(25:03):
the educational system. Boys. We're real harsh with boys in childhood.
And I mean I talk to people, I say, stop
telling your kid you're the man of the house, look
after your mother. At the age of ten.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I mean people got a great I got a great
Thanks for you. You should You should reach out to
doctor Judy Chu Chu, who is the US congress person
from California and also a psychologist.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Oh awesome.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Judy wrote a book You're Welcome to He's My Name.
Judy wrote a book called When Boys Become Boys. She
spent three years in a preschool kindergarten class watching how
gender socialization boys, and it is one of the most
disturbing books. She tells a story about. At the end
of the year, the teacher says every kid can lead
(25:54):
the class in their favorite song for the year, and
this sweet little boy stands up and starts singing a lullaby,
at which point all the other boys in the class
give him an untold ration of shit yeah, and he says,
I was just kidding. I don't like that song and
start singing the marine cor anthem. This is a five
year old boy, yeah yeah, who already has figured out
(26:15):
that there are parts of who he is that are
not okay with other boys. Right he the hide and
lie about and disguise. At five years old, he's already
being shaped into a traditional version of who he is.
And he's not okay.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, and that's the age where it was not contentious
to say this until about five years ago. But you know,
boys don't want to do girl things because they're boys.
They've gotten a sense of themselves as part of a
collective identity girls. Most girls, I wasn't one of them,
didn't want to do boy things because they're girls. And
(26:53):
it's the idea of for us. It's that sense of belonging.
And when you take away that sense of belonging at
such a tender age and push this adult style responsibility
on boys, you get stunted men.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, and another I think I would agree with you
for girls. I think it's different for boys. Unfortunately, I
don't think it's as much a sense of belonging as
it is shame, I think, and has more to do
with in this culture we tend to define masculinity, not
proactively but reactively. Masculinely is defining this culture as anything
(27:33):
that is not feminine.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Boys are taught to watch out for any sign letting
anybody see anything about them that might be perceived as feminine.
And that's what happened in that classroom.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, and you predicted the last kind of bucket I
wanted to talk about so because shame, we're finally at
a point where we're talking about men in shame. This
is something where every time I do a radio segment
or I do some piece of content and I talk
about men and shame, the floodgates open. But of course
(28:08):
the way it's discussed brings more shame because whenever it's
done on the Internet, which is the primary place these
conversations are having. Unfortunately, of course the internet has a
shame economy, right. The two biggest currencies on the Internet
are shame and cruelty. And so these guys speak up
and they get pummeled with you know, exactly what that
(28:32):
five year old boy experienced in his class. They go
back to being that five year old boy. And I
mean unpacking that you need to face the shame while
the shame is being piled on you from external sources,
because let's face it, that's how a.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Lot of.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
A lot of interactions with adult women and young men
are very shame driven, right, And I think that, I mean,
you talk about that in your book, and how do
we start unpacking this because there's also there's a shame
of anything feminine. But what's left for a lot of
(29:18):
guys is the suffering. There's more and more media. I
just played a video game and the most prominent male
character lied to everybody was out to destroy everything. But
it's centered in he felt bad about it, and so
it was somehow not okay. But a lot of men
(29:41):
are really relating to this guy who is a pathological
liar only out for himself.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Well, let's go back to the beginning of your story
about the young man who posts something online about it. Yeah,
when something's bothering you, where do you go for someone
to talk to?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Probably not the internet. So people post things of a
deeply personal nature on the Internet when they have no
one else to talk to. So the problem or the
solution to what you're talking about is we have to
help build positive, healthy, supportive communities for men. We have
to deal with men's isolation, because then maybe if the
(30:23):
Internet is a terrible place to go for help for
something that's bothering you, and what a surprise that you
get a hostile, abusive response right right, because you're taking
your personal, sensitive, vulnerable business and putting it out to
complete strangers. So that's the problem. It starts right at
the beginning which is we need pederal alternatives. We need
(30:45):
and so you know, things like I agree with you
completely about starting with young boys, because young boys have
very close friendships with each other and then we sort
of force them out of it. And so if we
wouldn't do that and let men continue. I can't tell
how many men I talk to who say I don't
have any close friends.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, yeah, which is another thing unfortunately women get blamed
for in the greater discussion, but it's no close friendships
among men.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
I don't know. I don't even understand that women wouldn't
be blamed for that.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But you know, well, because of course it's the idea
you couple off and your wife is everything, and it's
women as refuge and that's what these guys are taught.
They have a right to that's the discussion of men's rights.
They have a right to soothing, they have a right
to refuge and all that's true, but you know, not
(31:43):
in that way, like right, Okay, I don't even.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Think it's true. I think you get what you get
in a relationship because you earned it. You get it
because you gave it. You know, I don't think you
have a right to anything in a relationships another human
being across from you, right needs and feelings and if
you want tenderness and support and nurturing it.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Earn it. And that that is a language issue I've
found because these guys come to me and they're like
needs needs. It's said, I deserve to have my needs met.
I have needs. Love is in need, Companionship is in need.
Sex is a need. It's needs. They're right, right, but
(32:25):
and now what the the thing that the mano sphere
feeds them is that you deserve this, and those no
good women are denying you this right.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
But the reason that these men are vulnerable to this
is they don't know how to get it right, and
so they're very susceptible to someone, you know, preaching bitter,
bitterness and isolation as a permanent solution, rather than people
saying to them, well, here's how to make a friend.
So one of the one of the parts of the
(32:58):
book that I am most out of and happy about
it is that there's a chapter on how to form
a book group with other men to talk about men's issues.
Here's where you'd look for guys, Here's what to put
in the flyer, Here's how to start the group. Like,
let's start getting a little more concrete with men and
saying here's how you could do it. Let's have churches
start to offer men's groups. Let's have schools start to
(33:21):
offer men's groups. Let's have therapists, for God's sakes start
to you know. I recently was on a podcast with
a young male therapist who was just such a nice
guy and so earnestly he really wants to work with men.
I said, you know what, I will mentor you amount
of start a men's group, no charge, just let me
help you do it, so at least there'll be one more.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Men right on my discord server that I run. As
an extension of my content, I read A Court of
Thorn and Roses, you know, the trashy, romanticy novel series.
It's sold the bazillion copies because I lost a bet
on the man versus Bear thing. We tried to argue,
I was, I'm on team men, someone else's on team Bear.
In the audience response, I lost horribly. Apparently it makes
(34:03):
sense women pick the bear. But so I read a
Court of Florna and Roses, and I talked about it,
and so a lot of my male contributors also read
the book, and the dialogue that ensued all these guys
reading something written by women for women was really really
(34:23):
it was like a bonding moment. It was an experience, right,
And I think that part of it is it is
not good literature, but there's something so personal but personal
about the fear that women have that come out in it.
And it was like this new understanding of this is
(34:46):
what women are struggling with, and we're like, yeah, and
because we gender segregate, you know, it really gets intense
around the seventh grade, right, and that's when we start
to see a lot of the gendered problems start. Girls
self esteem and confidence takes me dump men's friendships while
they're boys at that point. That's another thing. We may
(35:09):
not have time to get into the idea that we
start treating a fourteen year old boy like a man.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
They're boys. You know, the sexual pressure alone, and maybe
we can deal with this on young men. You know,
we have shows like Adolescents that deal with a twelve
thirteen year old boy being called an in cell and
I'm just going to pieces about this.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
He's the best twelve one of the best shows about
kids and therapy. And families I've ever seen really stunning.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Okay, because the crisis it inspired in young men, and
we talk about sexualizing teenage girls like a bad thing.
We don't spend nearly enough talking about the fact that
a seventeen year old boy is still a boy. I mean,
when DC Comics few years back had a gay superman
(36:08):
for Pride, Right, it was Clark Kent's son, and John
Kent was seventeen years old in that book, and the
entire storyline was focusing on who he was having sex with. Wow,
And I was the only person I knew who went,
he's seventeen. If that were a girl, we wouldn't be
(36:30):
going yay Pride, we'd be going, you're sexualizing a minor, right,
how do we talk to because at that point they're
not a boy yet. It's an adolescence period where they're
having these urges, but the emotional development hasn't caught up,
and the pressure to have sex to prove something, not
(36:54):
because you're in love and you want to be intimate
with someone, is more intense than it's ever been.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
When I was a kid. This is going to sound curmudgeonly,
but we had one television in the house and it
was in the living room, so my parents knew what
I was watching. Yep, they knew what I was reading.
They knew my friends, they knew my teachers, and you know,
I did stuff they didn't know about. Every kid does,
(37:24):
but they knew more. They had a pretty good idea.
So I know this is ridiculous to say, but unless
we start restricting kids access to social media, we don't
have a chance. Okay, I was just with I have
two six year old grandsons and a new granddaughter, but
(37:44):
I was with the boys, and they're not allowed a
lot of screen time, and so I had the experience.
So when their parents let them watch, and what they
watch is like magic school buses, not racy stuff, they
looked like heroin addicts. I mean, they went from these sweet,
adorable kids to like nobody home. It was so dramatic.
(38:08):
And they are kids who are plugged into that stuff
and a lot worse, their parents have no idea. So
if we don't figure that out, none of this is
going to get better. We are exposing children to content
that would make me blush. Right, they're not equipped, their
parents don't nobody knows they're watching it, so they're not
nobody's explaining to them. People aren't really that way. That's
(38:30):
kind of an exit. They're on their own, overwhelmed by
this content. I don't know. I'm not smart enough to
know the answer. Yeah, but if we don't solve that,
none of this is going to change.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah. I mean that's where you get into the twelve
year olds watching Andre and Tate, which it's the algorithms
that are serving these things up right, There needs to
be some responsibility of the companies with these devices. You
gotta let a dialogue happen. But I do think we
(39:02):
don't protect boys when they're young. We're so focused on
toughening them up that I do think that. I mean,
the no phones in schools is I think a good initiative,
you know, more and more school Yeah, yeah, But how
two questions? I don't know if there are really easy
(39:24):
answers for them. But let's take the boys and the
prevention or the proper building prevention. I want to get
away from prevention language because that's part of the problem, right,
But how do we build up boys? And then if
you know these men, because these guys come to me,
they're around thirty, they're like, I've never had a girlfriend
(39:46):
and I'm afraid women are going to laugh at me
and all this stuff. And we know forty four percent
of gen Z men have no dating experience, so there's
a lot of them twenty four percent according to one study.
Yeah wow, yeah, forty four percent of them because they're
just everybody's terrified of each other. We're raising frightened young people.
(40:10):
And so what do you do? How with all these
forces that are tearing them down and putting their self
worth outside of themselves, And it's this constant comparison of
am I man enough? Instead of am I a good person?
What's the first step?
Speaker 3 (40:29):
The first step is community centers. The one of the
most effective demonstrated treatments for adolescent binge drinking. I believe
it was in Denmark adolescent binge drinking went down by
I want to say forty percent when they set up
a series. That's how my first work as a professional
was running teen centers. We used to run teen centers.
(40:50):
We have ping pond tables, we have pool tables, and
we had counselors hanging out eating ress cups and chatting
with kids in the living room. So this is a
demonstratedly effective. So kids, and there are adults there. They're
hanging out with each other, but there are adults in
the vicinity as opposed to riding around their cars with
(41:11):
no supervision, no one watching right on guiding. So we
have to start by building positive communities. So if the
parents would limit the social media, then the kids would
be bored and they would be looking for something else
to do, and then they might be interested in So
then even if you're not dating, hopefully dating would be
(41:32):
down the line and hanging out with girls and playing
ping pong with girls and doing your homework with girls
and getting less scared about being with girls in a normal,
healthy environment and then dating.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
It's funny because that's how I first got into peer counseling,
because I grew up in a well, you guys would
call them African American neighborhoods. It was a majority black neighborhood.
And so the community centers are everywhere because we know
it works. You know, it's just diversion in get them
socializing and get them if they're in the safe place,
they're not in the not safe places. But you get
into the middle class and you see all of that
(42:11):
disappearing outside of maybe church groups with people, you know,
they don't want the religious. What's going on with secular
community organizations for the middle class, because that's where a
lot of the funding's getting cut.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Well, it's it's not just I Sometimes when I travel
and I stay in a hotel, I think there's two
hundred rooms in this hotel. There's two hundred or more
people watching two hundred televisions. Yeah, you know, why don't
we put a TV in the common area? Yeah, what's movie?
(42:47):
So it's not just what we're doing with the kids,
it's that their parents are isolated. Their parents don't have friends,
their parents don't it's problem, and so they're modeling for
the kids. You know, everybody wanted to move to the suburbs.
They did, and they got away from what they didn't
like about the city. We can have another conversation about that.
(43:10):
But they traded community for isolation, and people live largely
and of course social media so that you don't have
to go to anywhere to at least have the idea
that you're in contact with somebody. You don't have to
get up off your butt and go outside. So I
(43:30):
moved five years ago to an island with twelve hundred residents,
and I joke with people. The post office is maybe
a quarter a mile away from me. Takes me an
hour go to the post office and back because I
see ten people. I know, how was your winter? How's
the garden going? I mean, you know, not heavy stuff,
(43:51):
but that's the fabric of my life. I sit on
my porch, I chat with neighbors. We get together for
pizza once a week. When I was just out of town.
When I back, how are you, how is your trip?
I'm known, I'm held out the nest of people. If
I'm sick, people say, do you feel better? Yeah, that
all matters.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
It's wild how when you get out of the suburbs
and get into the smaller communities. I did the same thing.
I went from very urban to suburban to rural y.
And you know the names of the people at your pharmacy,
you know the names of the people at the grocery store,
you the post office. There is a community that the
suburbs has just and think.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Doing that more and more. My impression is that people
are prioritizing community in their list of what's important to
them where they live.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah, Avram, weis fantastic. Please, if you've got a man
in your life. Hidden in Plain Sight is the name
of Avram's book, How Men's hears of Women shake their
their intimate relationships. I don't just recommend that men read
this book. I recommend that women read this book.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Can I offer Can I offer a suggestion about fact?
So this is not my idea. This is other people
have suggested this to me. I think it's a great idea.
I have a lot of couples tell me they read
the book together in this way. They read chapter one
and then they don't go on to two until they
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Chapter two. And it's so illuminating, and women are so
hungry to know what makes men take that It is
on psychology today. I have about fifty five percent of
my readers are women.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's really really helpful information. Abam,
thanks for coming back on. Thanks for your candor and
your knowledge. It's going to help a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Always a pleasure to talk to you. Keep up the
good work, all right.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
If you have any questions, comments, anything, If you want information,
what's the name of average book? Can you spell it
for me? Just go to not Therapy show dot compel
the contract form. I will get back to you. Women,
come back. Brief wrap up on this issue, Men's mental health,
and It's not therapy.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
No Radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in it the therapy. I'm still the inn a cursioner.
I'm still not a therapist. We are still talking. Very
little time left talking men's mental health. And the most
(46:31):
important thing guys, ladies who have guys in their life
they care about it is to foster open conversation. You
don't need to see a therapist, Okay, it can be
very helpful. Think of it as a help instead of
you need it. Right. It's not that you're bad, crazy,
it's just things can be better. But even if you
(46:52):
think they can't, talking to someone helps share the load
you deserve better than going through it on your own.
People will be a lot less judgmental and a lot
more understanding than you think they will be. Maybe not
(47:13):
at first. Everybody makes mistakes, but give them a chance,
give yourself a chance again. All it takes is one
person with a friendly ear and who seems to legitimately
care to make what you're carrying around feel less heavy.
(47:35):
It doesn't have to be a professional. It can be
a friend you know, a trusted colleague even within reason,
a family member, somebody check for you know, groups in
your area, organizations, send an email, Email me Leanna at
(47:55):
Nottherapyshow dot com. But please just talk to someone, and
if someone comes to you to talk, listen, really listen,
because everybody's got something going on. You are not alone,
but I am at a time, So if you have
any feedback at all, please reach out Leanna at Nontherapyshow
(48:17):
dot com, not Therapyshow dot com, or at not Therapy
Show on social media. I'm happy to hear it. Until then,
remember you're crazy is only a problem if it's hurting you.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot Ca.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello, listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
is It's not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am
(00:29):
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayings
for going good crazy this week. Okay, I'm a bit
late on this topic because Men's Mental Health Month was
last month, but it took a while to sing schedules
with a guest, and he's a great returning guest. You
may remember Avromwei's, PhD, author of Hidden Plain Sight, How
(00:51):
men's fears of women shape their intimate relationships, from the
last time we talked about men's mental health. But he'll
be on very shortly to discuss specifically the menosphere and
men's mental health, and that interview ran long, so I'm
going to do very briefly in toron of the topic,
so we can get right to the good stuff. Men
are twice as likely as women to die from preventable causes,
(01:15):
meaning death related to smoking, excessive drinking, and poor diet.
Men are almost three times as likely to die by
suicide than women. Fortunately, those rates are going down, but
men are also more likely to die of accidents than women,
and drug toxicity deaths accounted for two out of every
five of those accidents. Now. Despite this, despite these outcomes,
(01:40):
men perceive their mental health to be better than women do.
As of twenty twenty four, fifty one point eight percent
of Canadian men reported their mental health as excellent or
very good, compared to forty four point one percent of women.
Men were also less likely than women to report fair
or poor mental health, and contrary to exceedingly popular belief,
(02:04):
men were less likely than women to say they often
or always felt lonely I repeat. Men were less likely
than women to say they always are often felt lonely,
and it was a small difference. But they were also
more likely than Canadian women to say they rarely or
never felt lonely, and that was a significant difference. Fifty
three percent of Canadian men say they rarely or never
(02:28):
felt lonely compared to forty six point four percent of
Canadian women. Granted, this data didn't include the Canadian territories,
just the provinces. That does skew the number some however, overall,
based on the numbers, we do have men seem to
be doing better than women but end up with worse outcomes.
(02:48):
And I mean, the big question there is why we
know that men are less likely to seek therapy and
wait longer to start when they are struggling. Get into
some of the reasons with Avram after the break. But
that's where the manosphere comes in. Manosphere content is an
easy way for men to engage in self help through
(03:11):
pretty slickly produced videos that you know, primarily teach them
that you're not the problem. Various other things are. And
again we'll get into that with our expert psychotherapist Avram Weiss,
author of Hidden in Plane Sight, How Men's spheres of
women shape their intimate relationships. He'll be on after the
(03:35):
break to Edgemacajus, Do you have a story you think
would be good for the show. Are you interested in
sponsoring the show? Leanna at not therapyshow dot com is
my email. Not therapyshow dot com is the website. There's
a contact form on there or at not therapy show
on social media. So it's time. We're gonna get into
the manisphere and mental health with guests Avramwis and it's
(03:57):
not therapy.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
No radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two one one or
go to two one one dot CA. We're back in
this therapy. I'm still in a cursor. I'm still the
not a therapist. I am still talking about Men's Mental
(04:29):
Health Month, getting in very very late, but I wanted
to wait for this guest. And you'll recognize abrumwise from
previous episodes on men's content. Avroom does an ongoing blog
on Psychology Today about men's stuff, which is excellent. Abroom
does not pull punches.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
But that's a polite way of saying, yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I think that's what works to start. Avrom Is. I
do find with men, if you do the positive, the
suppor word of it doesn't work, right, it doesn't land,
And so I.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Mean you're offer a modification of that. Yeah, sure, I
think it works to the extent you mean it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But what doesn't work is people trying to blow smoke
and not really being real yeah, or anybody, and then
they're offended that the person's you know, bullshit meter goes
off and they say, well, look what I.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Said, right, Yeah, And now there is a certain amount
of you don't know me enough to say these sort
of positive things about me. You do have to spend
some time working. But then you get into the families
and you get into where I kind of want to
officially start today. Is this this fear, this understandable fear
(05:53):
that people have of the manosphere content out there. And
I wonder if we can start there, because there are
good reasons for this. Heere what makes the menosphere different
from just people like you who just work with men.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Well, I would like to think that's not even comparable.
But here's the common ground we have. I'll I'll be generous.
I think we both are accurately perceiving the dire straits
that many men, the internal pain and suffering that many
(06:32):
men are experiencing today. A, I'm listing commonalities first. Differences
will take longer. B. We care about men and want
better for them. Those might be the commonalities. The differences are.
(06:52):
I think they tend to blame women, and I am
extremely careful to not leave any room to be perceived
as so. The introduction to my book goes to great
lengths to basically say men are afraid of women, but
that's not because of anything women did to them, right,
(07:13):
So I think that's a fundamental difference, And I think
the reason that's a problem is that if you try
to improve your own lot in life by focusing on
blaming other people, it's not going to go well.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
The book, the book Avram's reference, Hidden plain sight, how
men's spheres of women shape their intimate relationships. For people
who want to know, it's like book, we'll talk. I'll
say that again later for those listening. So, yeah, the
blaming women element of the minosphere is definitely a thing,
but there is also real blame on the men themselves,
(07:47):
Like I am struck by this content how much they
run down their viewer, Like, yeah, ahead in.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
A particular way that's important. They do it by suggesting
to men that they are feminine meaning not masculine, and
so they are. This is a dilemma that men have
to start with, and so they're really you know, if
you can get a strong enough fulcrum and an enormous
(08:17):
block of granite, you know, you can split so that
the split is there. Men experience that dilemma to start with,
and they are taking advantage of that split and making
men feel bad about themselves instead of a positive message,
which would be, you know what, gender is not the
most important part of who you are. You have characteristics
(08:39):
that we would think of as stereotypically masculine, which is fine.
You have characteristics that we would think of a stereots
and guess what, in different settings, each one of those
are really helpful, yeap, And it either don't have to
hate yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Even saying gender is not the most important part of
who you are is a contentious statement these day. So
I want to pause on that because I agree with you.
I absolutely agree with you. And that is the thing.
People can cherry pick the science on gender and psychology
to make it say whatever they want. These days. They
find this one paper that says this. It's a complete outlier. Right,
(09:19):
You've got twenty five other papers that say this one thing.
You have this one paper that says, oh no, and
tie it into It's also Pride Month here in Canada,
I think in the US as well, And so the
whole talk. One of the things I noticed in a
lot of men's content is they immediately start by mentioning,
you know, we live in this age of pronouns as
(09:41):
opposed to pronouns having existed as a part of speech
as long as there's been speech, Right, what is it
about that we are obsessed with it as a culture
right now? When you're absolutely right. Gender, That's something I
had to learn. Gender is not even in the top
(10:02):
ten most important parts of who I am.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's hard to separate the signal from the noise. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
because there's the signal of people who experience themselves as
gender fluids speaking up, but that is often drowned out
by the noise of reactionary right wing people using that. So,
for example, one of my favorite examples, and I never
(10:26):
remember the numbers, I say, there are something like half
a million NCAA Division one athletes, of whom seven are transgender.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
So really that's the main topic, and that's how we're
going to choose our leaders is how they treat those
seven people. I'm not even touching for a moment how
we should treat them. I'm just talking about the noise
that gets generated. So twenty years ago it was about
gay people. They use gay people to drum up a
lot of hatred so that people became more accepting and
(10:59):
tolerant of gay Oh we need somebody else say hey,
oh how But doesn't matter that there's only seven of them? Yeah,
because it creates a firestorm, and it's not even about
gender or promoans and the Democrats unfortunately played into it
by making it a bigger And I'm not saying that
it's not an issue. I'm just saying it's seven kids. Yeah,
(11:20):
let's try to have a proportional response.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah. And being an NCAA athlete is not a human
right either. There's a real jumble of rights versus you know,
surviving versus thriving right, right, and there is I've been
hearing from an increasing number of clients that have been
persuaded by this content that because there is this discussion
(11:48):
of how trans and lumbinary people and gender fluid people
fit into the world, that the world hates men, and
that that's not even an equation, that's not a balance.
One thing has nothing to do with the other other
people getting Like expanding the pie doesn't mean you get
(12:12):
a smaller slice.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Unless you're a very concrete thinker. It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
And that's very interesting because that's another stereotype of men,
that men are more concrete thinkers than others. And we
know based on personality tests. Yeah, it's fairly easily distributed.
So go with this, but.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We give you a summary of the science on gender.
So there was an article published this year. So a
metal analytics study is a study across studies, so that
way you can have more numbers more people. This meta
analytics study looked at hundreds of studies on gender versus
environment within n meaning the number of subjects of two
(12:49):
million people, and concluded that gender is overwhelmingly learned, like
ninety something percent learned. Okay, Now, I personally find that
a little difficult to believe because I have two six
year old grandsons live to play with trucks, and then
(13:11):
I know their parents didn't put that in them. So
I'm not ready to go full bore and say it's
just learned. But I think we should at least honor
the science and be interested in the same thing is
true of course about race. If you look at your
DNA and my DNA and the DNA of somewhe a
different race, guess what they overlap by what is it?
(13:31):
Ninety nine sixty something? Crazy. So we are overwhelmingly more
alike in gender and race. Whatever you think of the science,
it's very clear that we are overwhelmingly more There's more
that we have in common than divides us.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, and as one of those people who never liked
typically girly things, you know, I was big into transformers
as a kid, which intersects with the whole truck thing
very very well. But I mean there is and this
is what we get. We all have sort of an
innate personality which is unique. And then there are those
(14:09):
social expectations, and that's what seems to be the crisis
with I'll separate men in masculinity for the purpose of
this discussion, right, because there's masculinity what society tells us
men should be right and that women should not be,
(14:31):
which is the other side of it. And then there's
the individual men. And the reason I wanted to have
you back on is because I've been hearing more and
more and more and more the world hates men's, society
hates men, culture hates men. And I can understand how
if somebody truly believes that, and they're getting it from
(14:55):
content Like you said, you know, Manosphet creators, I think,
in their own way do care about men. They care
about their money as well, but they care about me.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I'm willing to give them that. I think they general agree.
None of them invited me to be on their show,
so I don't really know that, but I'm willing to.
I wish they would. We'd have a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I've talked to some of these guys and they are
very driven by their own pain and their own experience.
Their don't belief that they overcame it. So I think
that that benefit of the doubt is very useful. But
where do you even begin if someone came to you
and said the world hates men or this world radically
(15:39):
prefers women, Like, where do you even start with that?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Okay, great question. I want to take it a level deeper. Yeah,
one of my favorite studies of all time. So I
think what we have to go deeper. We have to
look at what is the personal agenda here? Why is
this so important to some people? One of my favorite
studies they assembled a group of people and they showed
(16:05):
them a group of They gave them a test, a
psychological test that measured how high their level of homophobic
attitudes were, let's say zero to town yeah, And then
they showed them a series of erotic pictures, some with
men with women. You know where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I know this study, some with.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Men with women, some with women with women, and some
with men with men. And wouldn't you know it, the
higher your score on the homophobic scale, you just held
the pictures of the guys with guys just a little
bit longer, just a little more interesting to you. So
this is what therapists have been saying for over one
(16:46):
hundred years, that this hatred is fueled by unresolved So
the the fuel that drives homophobia is self loathing. That
drives I always get the word, but I think it's androgyny.
It's the right word, is self loathing. And so there
(17:09):
is truth to the fact that there are places in
the world in which men aren't treated in an unfair way,
no question about it. And I would point to my
own field as one of the worst offenders. So I
have been doing workshops for therapists around the country, challenging
them on their lack of training and biases in working
(17:35):
with men, and I love doing these workshops. One of
the things I do in the workshops is a little provocative.
Is I ask people, how many of you like men?
Raise your hand? And there are typically about a third
of the people in the room who do not therapists
who do not raise their hands, And I'm asking them
(17:57):
if I had said, how many of you don't like
Africa American people? Yeah, would you think it was a
problem that a third of you who didn't raise your
hands are working with African American clients. Why don't you
think it's a problem that your countertransference of about men,
your hostile, angry, bitter countertransference you're not dealing with. But
(18:18):
you still think you can be a good therapist to men.
So I read stuff in my field about men that
is so critical. Yeah, and I'm on a bit of
a crusade to challenge my field to do better. But
be that as it may, you still have the world
and live in the world you live in, right, But
(18:40):
once you're convince me that the world's not fair to men.
Of course, my question is I see what you're saying.
I see the truth in what you're saying. Do you
want to talk about what to do about that? So
I don't think you and I are going to change
the world. And you still have to live in this world.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Right, And there's still that two thirds of the room
that doesn't have an issue with men. And that's what
I say. The world is not the world is too
big for us to comprehend. It's completely fair that you
have felt a hostility to men in the part of
the world that you have experienced. That's the third of therapists.
(19:19):
And yeah, I've heard some of the things that therapists
have said to people, and my jaw drops, yeah, you know.
And that brings me to my next question. I wonder
if we should take a break and come back to it,
because it's about the way men's therapy is presented. It's
wrapped up in the bow of domestic violence prevention, violence
(19:44):
prevention safety.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Why would that turn anybody off?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Why would that think there was a bias here right
to stage to stage men at sort of the beginning
of the whole process is you are a potential threat.
You are a predator. I want to talk to Avermerized
when we come back on It's not Therapy. The author
of Hidden in Plain Site, How Men's and Women Shape
their Intimate Relationships, and a frequent contributor on Psychology Today, Avram,
(20:11):
can you hold over the break and we'll come back
and talk. Sure, awesome, We'll be back with that. Why
we make men out to be predators and honor a
Men's Mental Health Month And It's not therapy?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot C.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in It's not therapy. I'm still lean A Kursner. I'm
still not a therapist. We are still talking to Avram Weiss.
(20:49):
Avram has been on the show before talking about men's
issues to see, author of Hidden in Plain Site, How
Men's and Women Shape their Intimate Relationships. He is a PhD.
Much everybody I talked to is a PhD if they're
not directly affected by an issue. And he's a frequent
contributor Psychology today and before the break, Avram and I
(21:10):
were talking about wrapping the stake of men's mental health
in the bacon of men are predators. Let's pre violence.
You know, the whole dilute model thing, the power and
control wheel. The men are the problem that I think
is what part fuels the the psycho the psychology fields bias.
(21:34):
You know, you go in and you do a dilute
model workshop, which for people who do not know, is
the idea that violence is gendered. It's about power and control.
And they deliberately have all the language be men what
men do to women, because the primary clientele is men
who have had their first run in with the legal
(21:55):
system because they have been charged with a violent crime,
usually against a woman. Now, Avram, I can understand why
guys would see this because now thanks to the Internet,
everything's broken containment. Everything is out there for everywhere I
can see men go see. This is society telling me
I'm the problem. What would you say to that.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Well, let's let's start with some uncomfortable truths. Forty percent
of women are sexually assaulted by someone in their lifetime,
which is a number that no matter how many times
I hear, I still can't actually wrap my mind. And
of course that's overwhelmingly by men. Yeah, so that's a problem,
and no matter how much attention we pay to it,
(22:40):
I promise you if forty percent of men were sexually
assaulted by women, we would have done something about it
a long time ago. So I think we have to
start with that very uncomfortable truth. Now that said, obviously,
because forty percent of women are assaulted does not mean
that the majority of men are predators.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
That's false math, because the average predator does it to
seven different women before.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They get caught, right, Yeah, so a great deal of
damage is done to men by the assumption that every
man is a potential predator.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
So, another very uncomfortable truth, which I have certainly gotten
a lot of crap for talking about, is that statistically,
women initiate violence in relationships more than men do. Now,
men are more dangerous. Men initiates violence, it's more likely
(23:38):
to end up with a woman in the hospital. But
it's not a one sided problem, and it's not just
that it's unfair to men to talk about. We're never
going to get anywhere with it if we just think
about it. In victim perpetrate, right, and so unless we
understand the dynamics. And I would not very much honestly
(24:00):
say that men's fears of women are a large part
of the dynamics that go into men's violence towards women.
Men are terrified in intimate relationships, don't have the coping skills,
are largely isolated and without support, and they blow. And
I'm not rationalizing or justifying that. I'm trying to understand it.
(24:24):
It's obviously not okay, I'm not condoning it. But we
can either just say bad boy and punish, or we
can try to understand and educated inform men to have alternatives.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, I mean, the thing I dig a lot of
crap for saying is, look, if men are the perpetrators
of all this violence, all this bad stuff, then we
need to start focusing much younger. And yeah, and we do. See.
I mean, I'm sure you've seen the studies where girls
are sort of ignored. It's the try hard messaging from
(25:03):
the educational system. Boys. We're real harsh with boys in childhood.
And I mean I talk to people, I say, stop
telling your kid you're the man of the house, look
after your mother. At the age of ten.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I mean people got a great I got a great
Thanks for you. You should You should reach out to
doctor Judy Chu Chu, who is the US congress person
from California and also a psychologist.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Oh awesome.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Judy wrote a book You're Welcome to He's My Name.
Judy wrote a book called When Boys Become Boys. She
spent three years in a preschool kindergarten class watching how
gender socialization boys, and it is one of the most
disturbing books. She tells a story about. At the end
of the year, the teacher says every kid can lead
(25:54):
the class in their favorite song for the year, and
this sweet little boy stands up and starts singing a lullaby,
at which point all the other boys in the class
give him an untold ration of shit yeah, and he says,
I was just kidding. I don't like that song and
start singing the marine cor anthem. This is a five
year old boy, yeah yeah, who already has figured out
(26:15):
that there are parts of who he is that are
not okay with other boys. Right he the hide and
lie about and disguise. At five years old, he's already
being shaped into a traditional version of who he is.
And he's not okay.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, and that's the age where it was not contentious
to say this until about five years ago. But you know,
boys don't want to do girl things because they're boys.
They've gotten a sense of themselves as part of a
collective identity girls. Most girls, I wasn't one of them,
didn't want to do boy things because they're girls. And
(26:53):
it's the idea of for us. It's that sense of belonging.
And when you take away that sense of belonging at
such a tender age and push this adult style responsibility
on boys, you get stunted men.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, and another I think I would agree with you
for girls. I think it's different for boys. Unfortunately, I
don't think it's as much a sense of belonging as
it is shame, I think, and has more to do
with in this culture we tend to define masculinity, not
proactively but reactively. Masculinely is defining this culture as anything
(27:33):
that is not feminine.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Boys are taught to watch out for any sign letting
anybody see anything about them that might be perceived as feminine.
And that's what happened in that classroom.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, and you predicted the last kind of bucket I
wanted to talk about so because shame, we're finally at
a point where we're talking about men in shame. This
is something where every time I do a radio segment
or I do some piece of content and I talk
about men and shame, the floodgates open. But of course
(28:08):
the way it's discussed brings more shame because whenever it's
done on the Internet, which is the primary place these
conversations are having. Unfortunately, of course the internet has a
shame economy, right. The two biggest currencies on the Internet
are shame and cruelty. And so these guys speak up
and they get pummeled with you know, exactly what that
(28:32):
five year old boy experienced in his class. They go
back to being that five year old boy. And I
mean unpacking that you need to face the shame while
the shame is being piled on you from external sources,
because let's face it, that's how a.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Lot of.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
A lot of interactions with adult women and young men
are very shame driven, right, And I think that, I mean,
you talk about that in your book, and how do
we start unpacking this because there's also there's a shame
of anything feminine. But what's left for a lot of
(29:18):
guys is the suffering. There's more and more media. I
just played a video game and the most prominent male
character lied to everybody was out to destroy everything. But
it's centered in he felt bad about it, and so
it was somehow not okay. But a lot of men
(29:41):
are really relating to this guy who is a pathological
liar only out for himself.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Well, let's go back to the beginning of your story
about the young man who posts something online about it. Yeah,
when something's bothering you, where do you go for someone
to talk to?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Probably not the internet. So people post things of a
deeply personal nature on the Internet when they have no
one else to talk to. So the problem or the
solution to what you're talking about is we have to
help build positive, healthy, supportive communities for men. We have
to deal with men's isolation, because then maybe if the
(30:23):
Internet is a terrible place to go for help for
something that's bothering you, and what a surprise that you
get a hostile, abusive response right right, because you're taking
your personal, sensitive, vulnerable business and putting it out to
complete strangers. So that's the problem. It starts right at
the beginning which is we need pederal alternatives. We need
(30:45):
and so you know, things like I agree with you
completely about starting with young boys, because young boys have
very close friendships with each other and then we sort
of force them out of it. And so if we
wouldn't do that and let men continue. I can't tell
how many men I talk to who say I don't
have any close friends.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, yeah, which is another thing unfortunately women get blamed
for in the greater discussion, but it's no close friendships
among men.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
I don't know. I don't even understand that women wouldn't
be blamed for that.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But you know, well, because of course it's the idea
you couple off and your wife is everything, and it's
women as refuge and that's what these guys are taught.
They have a right to that's the discussion of men's rights.
They have a right to soothing, they have a right
to refuge and all that's true, but you know, not
(31:43):
in that way, like right, Okay, I don't even.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Think it's true. I think you get what you get
in a relationship because you earned it. You get it
because you gave it. You know, I don't think you
have a right to anything in a relationships another human
being across from you, right needs and feelings and if
you want tenderness and support and nurturing it.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Earn it. And that that is a language issue I've
found because these guys come to me and they're like
needs needs. It's said, I deserve to have my needs met.
I have needs. Love is in need, Companionship is in need.
Sex is a need. It's needs. They're right, right, but
(32:25):
and now what the the thing that the mano sphere
feeds them is that you deserve this, and those no
good women are denying you this right.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
But the reason that these men are vulnerable to this
is they don't know how to get it right, and
so they're very susceptible to someone, you know, preaching bitter,
bitterness and isolation as a permanent solution, rather than people
saying to them, well, here's how to make a friend.
So one of the one of the parts of the
(32:58):
book that I am most out of and happy about
it is that there's a chapter on how to form
a book group with other men to talk about men's issues.
Here's where you'd look for guys, Here's what to put
in the flyer, Here's how to start the group. Like,
let's start getting a little more concrete with men and
saying here's how you could do it. Let's have churches
start to offer men's groups. Let's have schools start to
(33:21):
offer men's groups. Let's have therapists, for God's sakes start
to you know. I recently was on a podcast with
a young male therapist who was just such a nice
guy and so earnestly he really wants to work with men.
I said, you know what, I will mentor you amount
of start a men's group, no charge, just let me
help you do it, so at least there'll be one more.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Men right on my discord server that I run. As
an extension of my content, I read A Court of
Thorn and Roses, you know, the trashy, romanticy novel series.
It's sold the bazillion copies because I lost a bet
on the man versus Bear thing. We tried to argue,
I was, I'm on team men, someone else's on team Bear.
In the audience response, I lost horribly. Apparently it makes
(34:03):
sense women pick the bear. But so I read a
Court of Florna and Roses, and I talked about it,
and so a lot of my male contributors also read
the book, and the dialogue that ensued all these guys
reading something written by women for women was really really
(34:23):
it was like a bonding moment. It was an experience, right,
And I think that part of it is it is
not good literature, but there's something so personal but personal
about the fear that women have that come out in it.
And it was like this new understanding of this is
(34:46):
what women are struggling with, and we're like, yeah, and
because we gender segregate, you know, it really gets intense
around the seventh grade, right, and that's when we start
to see a lot of the gendered problems start. Girls
self esteem and confidence takes me dump men's friendships while
they're boys at that point. That's another thing. We may
(35:09):
not have time to get into the idea that we
start treating a fourteen year old boy like a man.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
They're boys. You know, the sexual pressure alone, and maybe
we can deal with this on young men. You know,
we have shows like Adolescents that deal with a twelve
thirteen year old boy being called an in cell and
I'm just going to pieces about this.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
He's the best twelve one of the best shows about
kids and therapy. And families I've ever seen really stunning.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Okay, because the crisis it inspired in young men, and
we talk about sexualizing teenage girls like a bad thing.
We don't spend nearly enough talking about the fact that
a seventeen year old boy is still a boy. I mean,
when DC Comics few years back had a gay superman
(36:08):
for Pride, Right, it was Clark Kent's son, and John
Kent was seventeen years old in that book, and the
entire storyline was focusing on who he was having sex with. Wow,
And I was the only person I knew who went,
he's seventeen. If that were a girl, we wouldn't be
(36:30):
going yay Pride, we'd be going, you're sexualizing a minor, right,
how do we talk to because at that point they're
not a boy yet. It's an adolescence period where they're
having these urges, but the emotional development hasn't caught up,
and the pressure to have sex to prove something, not
(36:54):
because you're in love and you want to be intimate
with someone, is more intense than it's ever been.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
When I was a kid. This is going to sound curmudgeonly,
but we had one television in the house and it
was in the living room, so my parents knew what
I was watching. Yep, they knew what I was reading.
They knew my friends, they knew my teachers, and you know,
I did stuff they didn't know about. Every kid does,
(37:24):
but they knew more. They had a pretty good idea.
So I know this is ridiculous to say, but unless
we start restricting kids access to social media, we don't
have a chance. Okay, I was just with I have
two six year old grandsons and a new granddaughter, but
(37:44):
I was with the boys, and they're not allowed a
lot of screen time, and so I had the experience.
So when their parents let them watch, and what they
watch is like magic school buses, not racy stuff, they
looked like heroin addicts. I mean, they went from these sweet,
adorable kids to like nobody home. It was so dramatic.
(38:08):
And they are kids who are plugged into that stuff
and a lot worse, their parents have no idea. So
if we don't figure that out, none of this is
going to get better. We are exposing children to content
that would make me blush. Right, they're not equipped, their
parents don't nobody knows they're watching it, so they're not
nobody's explaining to them. People aren't really that way. That's
(38:30):
kind of an exit. They're on their own, overwhelmed by
this content. I don't know. I'm not smart enough to
know the answer. Yeah, but if we don't solve that,
none of this is going to change.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah. I mean that's where you get into the twelve
year olds watching Andre and Tate, which it's the algorithms
that are serving these things up right, There needs to
be some responsibility of the companies with these devices. You
gotta let a dialogue happen. But I do think we
(39:02):
don't protect boys when they're young. We're so focused on
toughening them up that I do think that. I mean,
the no phones in schools is I think a good initiative,
you know, more and more school Yeah, yeah, But how
two questions? I don't know if there are really easy
(39:24):
answers for them. But let's take the boys and the
prevention or the proper building prevention. I want to get
away from prevention language because that's part of the problem, right,
But how do we build up boys? And then if
you know these men, because these guys come to me,
they're around thirty, they're like, I've never had a girlfriend
(39:46):
and I'm afraid women are going to laugh at me
and all this stuff. And we know forty four percent
of gen Z men have no dating experience, so there's
a lot of them twenty four percent according to one study.
Yeah wow, yeah, forty four percent of them because they're
just everybody's terrified of each other. We're raising frightened young people.
(40:10):
And so what do you do? How with all these
forces that are tearing them down and putting their self
worth outside of themselves, And it's this constant comparison of
am I man enough? Instead of am I a good person?
What's the first step?
Speaker 3 (40:29):
The first step is community centers. The one of the
most effective demonstrated treatments for adolescent binge drinking. I believe
it was in Denmark adolescent binge drinking went down by
I want to say forty percent when they set up
a series. That's how my first work as a professional
was running teen centers. We used to run teen centers.
(40:50):
We have ping pond tables, we have pool tables, and
we had counselors hanging out eating ress cups and chatting
with kids in the living room. So this is a
demonstratedly effective. So kids, and there are adults there. They're
hanging out with each other, but there are adults in
the vicinity as opposed to riding around their cars with
(41:11):
no supervision, no one watching right on guiding. So we
have to start by building positive communities. So if the
parents would limit the social media, then the kids would
be bored and they would be looking for something else
to do, and then they might be interested in So
then even if you're not dating, hopefully dating would be
(41:32):
down the line and hanging out with girls and playing
ping pong with girls and doing your homework with girls
and getting less scared about being with girls in a normal,
healthy environment and then dating.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
It's funny because that's how I first got into peer counseling,
because I grew up in a well, you guys would
call them African American neighborhoods. It was a majority black neighborhood.
And so the community centers are everywhere because we know
it works. You know, it's just diversion in get them
socializing and get them if they're in the safe place,
they're not in the not safe places. But you get
into the middle class and you see all of that
(42:11):
disappearing outside of maybe church groups with people, you know,
they don't want the religious. What's going on with secular
community organizations for the middle class, because that's where a
lot of the funding's getting cut.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Well, it's it's not just I Sometimes when I travel
and I stay in a hotel, I think there's two
hundred rooms in this hotel. There's two hundred or more
people watching two hundred televisions. Yeah, you know, why don't
we put a TV in the common area? Yeah, what's movie?
(42:47):
So it's not just what we're doing with the kids,
it's that their parents are isolated. Their parents don't have friends,
their parents don't it's problem, and so they're modeling for
the kids. You know, everybody wanted to move to the suburbs.
They did, and they got away from what they didn't
like about the city. We can have another conversation about that.
(43:10):
But they traded community for isolation, and people live largely
and of course social media so that you don't have
to go to anywhere to at least have the idea
that you're in contact with somebody. You don't have to
get up off your butt and go outside. So I
(43:30):
moved five years ago to an island with twelve hundred residents,
and I joke with people. The post office is maybe
a quarter a mile away from me. Takes me an
hour go to the post office and back because I
see ten people. I know, how was your winter? How's
the garden going? I mean, you know, not heavy stuff,
(43:51):
but that's the fabric of my life. I sit on
my porch, I chat with neighbors. We get together for
pizza once a week. When I was just out of town.
When I back, how are you, how is your trip?
I'm known, I'm held out the nest of people. If
I'm sick, people say, do you feel better? Yeah, that
all matters.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
It's wild how when you get out of the suburbs
and get into the smaller communities. I did the same thing.
I went from very urban to suburban to rural y.
And you know the names of the people at your pharmacy,
you know the names of the people at the grocery store,
you the post office. There is a community that the
suburbs has just and think.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Doing that more and more. My impression is that people
are prioritizing community in their list of what's important to
them where they live.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah, Avram, weis fantastic. Please, if you've got a man
in your life. Hidden in Plain Sight is the name
of Avram's book, How Men's hears of Women shake their
their intimate relationships. I don't just recommend that men read
this book. I recommend that women read this book.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Can I offer Can I offer a suggestion about fact?
So this is not my idea. This is other people
have suggested this to me. I think it's a great idea.
I have a lot of couples tell me they read
the book together in this way. They read chapter one
and then they don't go on to two until they
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Chapter two. And it's so illuminating, and women are so
hungry to know what makes men take that It is
on psychology today. I have about fifty five percent of
my readers are women.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's really really helpful information. Abam,
thanks for coming back on. Thanks for your candor and
your knowledge. It's going to help a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Always a pleasure to talk to you. Keep up the
good work, all right.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
If you have any questions, comments, anything, If you want information,
what's the name of average book? Can you spell it
for me? Just go to not Therapy show dot compel
the contract form. I will get back to you. Women,
come back. Brief wrap up on this issue, Men's mental health,
and It's not therapy.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
No Radio, no problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in it the therapy. I'm still the inn a cursioner.
I'm still not a therapist. We are still talking. Very
little time left talking men's mental health. And the most
(46:31):
important thing guys, ladies who have guys in their life
they care about it is to foster open conversation. You
don't need to see a therapist, Okay, it can be
very helpful. Think of it as a help instead of
you need it. Right. It's not that you're bad, crazy,
it's just things can be better. But even if you
(46:52):
think they can't, talking to someone helps share the load
you deserve better than going through it on your own.
People will be a lot less judgmental and a lot
more understanding than you think they will be. Maybe not
(47:13):
at first. Everybody makes mistakes, but give them a chance,
give yourself a chance again. All it takes is one
person with a friendly ear and who seems to legitimately
care to make what you're carrying around feel less heavy.
(47:35):
It doesn't have to be a professional. It can be
a friend you know, a trusted colleague even within reason,
a family member, somebody check for you know, groups in
your area, organizations, send an email, Email me Leanna at
(47:55):
Nottherapyshow dot com. But please just talk to someone, and
if someone comes to you to talk, listen, really listen,
because everybody's got something going on. You are not alone,
but I am at a time, So if you have
any feedback at all, please reach out Leanna at Nontherapyshow
(48:17):
dot com, not Therapyshow dot com, or at not Therapy
Show on social media. I'm happy to hear it. Until then,
remember you're crazy is only a problem if it's hurting you.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot Ca.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!