September 12, 2025 • 51 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Dr. Thomas Verney, a clinical psychologist and author, about the complex crisis facing men today, emphasizing that while not all men are affected equally, many are struggling with identity issues and joblessness, particularly young men without formal education or specialized skills. Together they discuss the debate around toxic masculinity and the challenges men face in adapting to changing societal roles and the rise of right-wing politics among young men. Young men are struggling with identity, relationships, and societal value, with declining graduation rates and increased suicide rates among young men.
Thomas speaks about the evolving definition of masculinity in a rapidly changing society, how societal changes, gender roles, and biological factors influence men's development and experiences, while examining the impact of toxic masculinity, incel culture, and the decline of traditional male roles in teaching and leadership. He concludes about the importance of active parenting, the need for more male role models, and the challenges of modern romantic relationships in the digital age.
Thomas speaks about the evolving definition of masculinity in a rapidly changing society, how societal changes, gender roles, and biological factors influence men's development and experiences, while examining the impact of toxic masculinity, incel culture, and the decline of traditional male roles in teaching and leadership. He concludes about the importance of active parenting, the need for more male role models, and the challenges of modern romantic relationships in the digital age.
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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 (00:18):
Good evening and everyone, and welcome to the Brian Cromey
Radio Hour.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I've had the pleasure of interviewing doctor Thomas Vernie before,
and I've got him back because he's written a very
interesting article titled the Complex Crisis Facing Men Today, and
it's a really interesting review of one of these issues
that I think have really come up of note of late,
where numerous different commentators are talking about the challenge of masculinity.
(00:45):
Some people are calling toxic masculinity, and then people reacting
that no, it's a problem and we've got to address it,
and other people say, no, no, it's not a problem
at all. You know, it's mean have been this, had
this privileged position forever, and they're just complaining that they've
lost this privileged position. Thomas, Doctor Thomas Vernie is a
fascinating person. He's a clinical psycho psychiatrist. He's an academic.
(01:07):
He's an award winning author. He's a public speaker, he's
a poet, and he's a podcaster. He is the author
of eight books, including the global bestseller The Secret Life
of the Unborn Child and twenty twenty one's The Embodied Mind,
Understanding the mysteries of cellular memory, consciousness and our bodies.
And as I mentioned, I've had the pleasure of interviewing
him before, so it's a real pleasure to have doctor
(01:28):
Vernie back again. So doctor Vernie, what is the complex
crisis facing men today?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Sir Well, Brian, I think you put it very well
in the introduction. You know, different people seem to have
a different view of it, but there is simply no
doubt that men are having a problem with identity. Of course,
men are not one homogeneous entity. You know, they are
(01:57):
young men, they're older man, they're retired man. They are
men who are racialized, they are immigrant men. There are
you know, men who are working like yourself, white collar men,
white colored jobs. Then they are men who are working
on farms. So you know, all of these different groups
(02:19):
have different problems. So I just want to make it
very clear that you know, it's not all men who
are having the problems that, as you said in your introduction,
of a lot of journalists and other people, politicians for example,
are calling a crisis and The problem is that particularly
(02:44):
young men are having problems finding a job. That's a
really really big problem, and especially when they don't have
a formal education beyond high school, let's say. And also
if they don't have if they if they are not
(03:06):
like plumbers, electricians, people who have really good what do
you call those jobs, it's escaping me for the moment labor, right,
So people who are essentially out of high school but
have no specialized training, either in those uh skilled labor
(03:31):
markets or of course in computers, they're having huge problems.
So that's one thing. The other thing is that sort
of the definition of masculinity has really changed. You know,
at one time, we had you know, we had the Westerns,
(03:52):
we had you know, Jerry, you know, we we we
had like Gun Smoke for example, or Have Gun Will Travel,
which was one of my favorites. I love that show.
Probably before your time. But masculinity was very clearly defined
like strong, silent, honest, a good provider, looked after the
(04:18):
family or looked after the estate. Much of that has
sort of disappeared. Being strong and silent is definitely not
in vogue.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
You've got to be empathetic and vulnerable.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
And open exactly exactly, and that for many young people
even today is seen as soft. Okay, oh my god.
Some people might even think I am gay if I
am too soft, right, So there's confusion. Confusion is raining women.
(04:54):
I mean, as a psychiatrist, you know, over the years,
I've seen many many couples and it's almost the same
refrain that I hear from the wife. He never talks
to me about his feelings. That's usually what I have
gotten over the years, and still and still get. Men
(05:16):
are not good at talking about their feelings. And some
of that, as I explain in my article, some of
that is just simply biological. Men are in terms of
their brains different from women. Women have a much better
connection between the two parts of the brain, the left
(05:37):
and the right brain. Men don't have that good connection.
It's called the corpus colossum, and it's like a bridge
that connects the two brains. And women that way, are
much more intuitive, They are much more in touch with
their feeling and also are their language is more developed
(05:59):
than men, so they don't have any problems talking about
their feelings. Men have problems just biologically but also culturally
because strong silent is still in many quarters seen as
the best way for a man to be. So we
(06:20):
have all these problems, but I think I should make
it very clear that women have their problems too. It's
not just it's not just men. Okay, there is this
vitriol against women in power, as we have seen in
the elections for example, in the United States recently, but
it's all over the world. You know, therese arise in
(06:42):
domestic violence and femicide. There is persistent pay inequality with
women in Canada, you know, in western part of Canada,
when where there are a lot of Native women, they
have been abused, they have been killed at a much
(07:03):
higher rate than men have been killed. So I think
all of us are having problems, and I think it
is so important to realize that we have these problems
and that we need to do something about it.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
The issue that you talk about in regards to men
not getting jobs is far larger, is it not.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, the.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Comments that people have mentioned and the statistics I think
bear out is that they're not just finding getting jobs difficult.
It's finding relationships, it's finding meaning, it's finding identity, it's
finding a place in society. Let me quote from your article.
If I could you say whether in not Maalatia or
anywhere else men feel left out, not needed, or not valued.
(07:50):
The likelihood of them becoming depressed and suicidal or angry
and violent increases exponentially. They also occupy a growing presence
in the manner a loose network of communities that claim
to dress men's struggles. These groups are united by an
opposition to feminism and cast men as victims of the
current social and political climate. I heard Governor Newsom of
(08:13):
California recently, and he was talking about how graduation rates
for males in secondary, post secondary and for sure in
graduate programs diminishing dramatically, such that he thinks that in
ten years there's going to be one third male two
thirds female graduates of post second educations in California. How
(08:35):
suicide rates have doubled, if not more than doubled in
California for young men. And he talked about how in
his own Democratic Party, the vast majority of people, not
just females, but people dismiss this as completely irrelevant and
they don't see it. And politically, in the last election,
(08:57):
both Donald Trump and the United States and Pierre Paulia
in Canada exploited this, and you saw a dramatic increase
in young men voting for right wing parties. So this
is more than just not getting jobs.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
What's going on, Well, it's a feeling of displacement, as
I have put it, you know, in my piece for
the Globe and Mail confusion. And when there are people,
particularly on the internet, you know, who promise you easy
(09:30):
solutions two very complex problems, young men are attracted to that.
There is also a lack of education in many parts
of the Western world, particularly in the United States, but
also in Canada, where very often children are not taught
(09:55):
to really analyze a problem in other ways, to look
at it in terms of pros and cons to debate things,
to discuss as you and I are right now, you know,
different views. This is less and less taught in schools,
(10:16):
and so a lot of people don't have the capacity to,
let's say, read something or hear something on the internet
and actually think about this, like is this really logical?
Does this make sense? What is the evidence? Nobody is
teaching them that.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
We're gonna have to take a break for some messages,
and I want to come back. I can ask doctor
Vernie about you know, some of the negative side effects
of some of the negative impacts of this trend, this
manosphere that he talks about. But frankly, that manosphere has become,
you know, almost this toxic masculinity, this in cells, these
you know, the typified by this description which may mean
(10:59):
a be accurate of young men in their mother's basements
playing video games and not being able to form relationships
and what's going on.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We're going to take a.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Break and come back with doctor Bernie and just to
and stay with us everybody.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Cromey Radio. Doctor Thomas
Vernie with us today. He is a clinical psychiatrist, he's
an academic. He's an award winning author, public speaker, poet
and podcaster, and he's recently written a fascinating column in
The Globe Mail called the Complex Crisis facing Men Today. Men,
especially young men, are reacting to a rapidly changing world.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Let me if I could, sir.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Just read a little bit from your article again, if
I could, you say. Richard Weaves, a British American scholar,
argues that men are struggling to adapt to rapid and
unsettling social transformations. He contends that the advancement of women's rights,
combined with the economy's move from physical labor to knowledge
based work, has deprived many men of what Scottish psychiatrist
(12:13):
Are de Lean called ontological security, a stable sense of identity.
Rhea's warns that men now face the danger of becoming
culturally redundant, culturally redundant. You know, we've heard these comments
about these INCEELL organizations, communities of young men that blame
(12:34):
females for all of their ills, that are living in
their mother's basements, that they're playing video games, that can't
form relationships, that can't find dates, that can't find partners,
that aren't getting married, that are not having kids, that
are not getting mortgages and houses, and they're blaming feminism
and women's liberation and women for their problems. And an
(12:58):
overlized feminine school system or or or or or or
feminism of the school system. Gavin Newson talks about no male.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Real model role models.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Barack Obama, the former president United States, said that particularly
in the black community, this was a real problem with
lack of male role models and and and he challenged
fathers that they've got to play a far bigger role.
It's almost as if everything you just described about sort
of the bonanza or gun smoke or a strong male
(13:31):
role model of the past is no longer looked upon
as positive and uh. And what's happening is that you
either have to be this effeminate, emphathetic, vulnerable, almost feminized
version or you.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
End up being this toxic masculinity version. What's going on, sir?
How do you see this?
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Well? As you put it? You know, those two extremes,
the talk sick, vulgar, aggressive male or the feminized male
are the two extremes really, And what we have to
do is to try to find some space in the middle.
I think that Obama and you come and many others
(14:20):
who have spoken on this are right. You know, in
some ways, young young children only get female teachers. I
don't know whether I put it in my article or
not because it has been sometime since I've written it.
But for example, from the moment that children are born,
(14:40):
mothers mothers relate different mothers and fathers relate differently to
their children depending on their sex. If the child is female,
the mother will speak differently, much more emotionally to her daughter,
and the father will do sort of much more rambunctuous,
(15:02):
sort of athletic things with his little son, like throw
him up in the air and catch him, or just
sort of, you know, play kind of rough and tumble games,
which he would not with the daughter. So gradually, right
from the moment that children are born, they are treated differently.
When they go to kindergarten, when they go to nursery school,
(15:24):
it's always female female teachers who they have. In public school,
it's mostly female teachers. One of my friends was going
to volunteer to look after some Sea cadets in Hamilton
(15:44):
and he found that whereas a few years ago there
was something like seventy five Sea cadets in Hamilton, now
they are only fifteen. And one of the reasons is
that they have got two female officers, whereas in the
past they at male officers. So imagine sikadets having two
(16:04):
female officers like this is not a good role model
for boys, no matter how competent the female officer may be,
not when you are trying to learn about boyhood masculinity.
So having more males in the teaching professions, having more
(16:29):
males at universities, that would really really help. But the
most important thing is to try to get focused on
the middle between those two extremes that you have just mentioned,
because the people on the extremes are very persuasive, they
(16:52):
have a strong presence on the Internet, whereas people like
you and I, who I think you know would tend
to be more in the middle, uh, don't have such
a strong voice. And so people are being like like
(17:12):
a magnet, They're just being pulled in these extremes. And
that's the problem because once you have those two extremes,
they dislike each other. There is antagonism, There is a
lot of dislike and fighting and violence, and the world
(17:34):
is just going further and further into a terrible mess.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
But the the the the the right wing, you know,
Pierre Paula of Donald Trump, uh, and you know some
of the commentators, whether they be Josh Robin Rogan or
or others in the United States and in Canada have
really appealed to this this uh. You know, I'm not
going to suggest toxic masculinity, but this this very strong
(18:01):
masculine attitude that's almost anti feminine at times, and certainly
maybe not feminine, but feminism and women's liberation. You know,
I've interviewed people that have talked about the problem being,
you know, the nineteen sixties and the sexual revolution and
the pill and abortion, that that gave females a very
(18:22):
different opportunity, and that took away that opportunity from men
and changed sort of society fairly dramatically, and that women
have adapted to that and have adapted well, but men
haven't adapted. And it's almost as if some of these
men are blaming women. And you know, again, to quote
your article if I could, a number of men in
(18:43):
the West believe that women are as sending to positions
of prestige and power that they once held. It is
a kind of cultural teeter Tatar. Women are seen as
rising triumphant, while men in free fall feel defeated and angry.
It's hard to measure, but it seems to me an
equal number of women think just the opposite, given the
erosion of reproductive rights, the rise of domestic violence and femicide,
(19:05):
persistent paid equality, and the vitrial women in power face
daily online and in the media. So women aren't happy,
are devastated?
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Yes, Well, you know another problem that we have not mentioned,
and that I run up against when I speak to
men in particular. Is this vocism that's going on? Okay,
like this sort of changing of terms that we have
always used into something else. For example, in schools, you
(19:39):
cannot say student, you have to say learner. In my
own particular area, which has for a long time, psychiatry
and obstetrics, you cannot say breastfeeding women. You have to
say are you ready for this? Chest feeding women? Just
(20:00):
feeding people? Sorry, not breastfeeding. You cannot say pregnant women.
You have to say pregnant people. This is ridiculous. I
have never met a pregnant non women. And to you know,
you can't say problems, you have to say challenges. So
(20:23):
men feel that they are being force fed. What they
see are these sort of feminist ways of looking at
the world, and they don't like it. Men also, by
and large, biologically and also historically, tend to be more
conservative than women. They are conservative because, like you just mentioned,
(20:48):
they had prestige, they had power, and they see it
see that losing, so obviously they don't like it.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
So is this just a power grab them that men
don't like the fact that power has been taken away
from them, that money has been taken away from them.
That you know that the obligation for a female to
submit to them in a marriage that would have been
an attitude that I've actually heard recently, but that you know,
it's probably an attitude from the nineteen fifties and before
have been taken away. You know, Is this just greed
(21:21):
or jealousy that men just want the power back again.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I think that it's mostly unconscious. I don't think that
they really you know, if you spoke to a man
about this, they probably would not admit to it. But
I think it's there. And the sort of the need
to blame someone is very human. Okay, when a person
(21:47):
goes wrong in any which way, the immediate knee jerk
reaction is to blame someone, not me. Wasn't my fault,
you know, my wife made me do it, right, I
didn't do it. Oh. In the United States, it's the immigrants, okay,
or it's the blacks, the Greens, the yellows, whatever, just
not me. So there is this kind of a reaction
(22:11):
to blame women when actually, you know, all they have
done really is to get back equality, which they definitely deserve.
Of course, we should all be equal, but for men,
it seems like they are better off than they were,
and therefore there's resentment.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I want to come back.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
To you know, feminism and femininity in a minute, and
females if I could, But before I go there, you
do talk about socialization a lot in your article about
how mothers and fathers tap treat their offspring male or
female very differently. But you also talk, which I found
quite interesting, about the role of testosterone and estrogen. Could
(22:56):
you elaborate on that a little bit? Tell us, you know,
as a as a as a as a doctor, as
a clinical psychiatrist, what is the role of testosterone and estrogen.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah, well, they're very different obviously, you know, they're the
main They are the main sex hormones that we have
both in men and women. From the moment that you
are actually conceived or very shortly after in males, you
start producing testosterone and in women estrogen, and that is
(23:32):
going to shape and sculp your brain and the rest
of your body, of course as it's developing. But from
my perspective, most importantly it's it's really the brain. I mean,
obviously the sexual organs and all that will be influenced
by testosterone and estrogen and progesterone and many of the
other hormones, but testosterone is the one that really is
(23:57):
most influential in men, and it has a kind of
aggressive component to it. It makes a person more ready
to become physical, whether that is just work or whether
(24:18):
it's violence. When there is testosterone, when there is a
lack of serotonin, which is another hormone in the body,
neuro hormone, then very often that will increase violence or
(24:38):
propensity to a tendency to violence, whereas estrogen is a
much more calming hormone. And then there are other hormones
like oxytocin and vasopressin, again very different excuse me, in
males and females. Oxytocin is produced much more in women,
(25:01):
vasopressant much more in men, And again vasopressin is a
more aggressive hormone. Oxytocin is a very social hormone. So
women who have oxytocin and estrogen as opposed to men
who have vasopressin and testosterone, there is a real biological
(25:22):
difference there, which does not in any way, of course,
justify males becoming violent, but there is a greater propensity
for violence bio logically speaking, or aggressiveness or competitiveness in
men than it is in women.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
And one of the.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Things that you talk about in your article, which I
think people know but you need to be reminded about,
is you talk about the role of testosterone in females.
So there is estrogen in males, and there is testosterone
and females.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Correct, yes, And testosterone is very important in women in
terms of sexual a sexual drive, a desire to have
sexual relations, and it slowly starts disappearing with age, and
pretty well disappears by the time menopause comes around. So
(26:14):
then of course that creates some more problems because you
may be married to a man in whom there is
still plenty of testosterone, but the woman has none, and
so she has no sexual desire. He still has some,
which might lead to some problems in the relationship. Tell
me about the role of estrogen in males, well, the
(26:37):
role in estrogen in males makes them more loving, also
the same as opocin. Interestingly enough, every time, every time
you dance, every time you have a good meal, you
produce dopamine and oxytocin, and so that will make that
(26:59):
particular activity pleasant, which means that you will want to
have more of it. Which is great for women. For example,
when they breastfeed, they produce oxytocin and dopamine which will
make them ready to breastfeed again. So the way nature
sets this up is very clever. But once you run
(27:23):
out of oxytocin and vasive pressing, which also happens over
the years, there is much less and less of that
in your system, and you may become less social and
less interested in making friendships.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
We're going to take a break for some messages. I'm
going to come back in two minutes with doctor Thomas
Vernie and talk about.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Femininity and feminism and the female side of the equations.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Stay with us, everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on Sagay ninety
sixty am CN.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
I've went to the Brian crime radio war. I've got
doctor Thomas Vernie with us tonight. He is a clinical psychiatrist,
he's an academic. He's an award winning author, public speaker,
poet and podcaster. He's written a really interesting column recently
called the Complex Crisis Facing Men Today, and we've talked
about h the challenges that that many men, particularly less
(28:35):
educated u UH in rural communities that have lost this
sort of sense of meaning and they become you know,
some people would describe this sort of very toxic masculinity
and the description of of of them having problems having
forming relationships, finding dates, getting marriages, uh, and and developing
(28:59):
into that uh that you know, that model that we
have of of of of a person getting the mortgage
by a house, having kids, uh, forming a stable long
term relationship.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And it seems to be challenged today.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
You you don't address this in the article, but you
sort of raise it right near the end and you
call it as a question that females are also having
some challenges. And it's interesting, Uh, doctor, I've had numerous
conversations of Lake that have said one of the by
products of this is also that it is more challenging,
more difficult even for some females to feel feminine and
(29:35):
to and to and to focus on their femininity and uh,
and that they're being told by society that they've got
to be more like a man, that they've got to
be more successful in their career. They they've got to
get a job, they've got to be in the workforce,
and that to take time to be a mother, to
take to be a housewife, to be to be feminine
(29:56):
is frowned upon by society. So so if female has
been in pacted by this sort of trend as well.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Well, yes, as you put it, you put it very correctly.
There is a strong now movement, particularly in the United States,
where again you know, there are some highly well popular.
(30:25):
I was going to say respected, but I think I
would rather like to say popular. They are popular speakers,
popular women speakers who attract hundreds and thousands of women
to their websites and to some of their conferences where
they tell women that they should have that they should
(30:48):
stop working and become housewives again and have children. I mean,
this huge sort of focus and having children is incredible.
In the twenty first century, what we are witnessing is
like a real oh, you know, going back to the
(31:11):
seventeenth century or something. And the more children you have,
the better. And in this article that I wrote in
the Globe and Mail, I'm quoting one woman I wish
I think your name was Clark. Do you have my
(31:31):
paper in front of you by any chance?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I do, I'm looking for it right now.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Sir, kay. So where are we. It's towards the end.
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
What were you saying.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I was saying about the fact that there are some
women now, very popular women who are telling other women
that they should not work, they should withdraw from working,
and that they should have children. And like one woman
(32:20):
by the name of Clark, I think was telling was
telling women that they She came out with this absolutely
ridiculous statement less prozac, more protein. I'm not quite sure
what she meant by that. Also, also, she was single
(32:42):
and had no children, and yet she had thousands of
people listening to her telling them that they should have children.
So again, you know, I'm coming back to the fact
that people have just not and to question, to analyze,
(33:03):
to ask questions about like how does this make sense?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So you know, what do we do about this?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
And you meant and you end with us saying that
you know, you're not quite sure what the remedy is.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
But you know, let's talk about this a little bit.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
If if we've had this big trend in society that
was affected by the sexual revolution of the nineteen sixties,
by the pill, by women's liberation, by by abortion, et cetera,
and and and and assuming that we believe that equality
is is is add and role in something that we
(33:42):
want and that control over your reproductive rights is something
that we that we think is positive and uh and
that you know, misogyny is bad.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
You know, you go through the things.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
But at the same time, what is happening, it would appear,
is that maybe because of globalization, maybe because of technology,
maybe because of a lot of other trends, there is
this uh segment of society that is young men in
uh in in rural communities or former blue collar communities
that are as you say, finding meaning, uh, not finding
(34:17):
meaning and uh and and and being in despair. That
suicide is up, the graduation rates are up, that I understand,
addictions are up, uh, you know, all trends that we
don't like. So that men are feeling challenged, particularly young
men are feeling challenged in their maleness and in their
desire for success. And some females are finding challenges in
(34:42):
in their in their inability to or at least society's
restrictions on their their their ability to to be feminine
and uh and and and and.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
And take what would have been historically feminine choices. How
do we how do we how do we address all this?
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Do we just not or do we have to do
something about it, because right now we would appear that
at least the right wing commentators are taking advantage of
this lack of meaning that people are are faced with
and struggling with and are developing either as you say this,
(35:21):
you know, almost step for wife kind of attitude within
conservative females, or this toxic masculinity trend within males. And
you know, we saw it in Canada with this you know,
freedom movement during the Trucker convoy.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
So what do we do as a society, sir.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Well, I think we start this parenting. I think that
parents have to pay much more attention to their children,
both male and female, and teach them both by modeling.
In other words, they themselves living the right life and
(36:01):
also verbal attitudes communication, what it means to be a
human being in the twenty first century, to be a
good person, to be a thinking person, a caring person.
This has to start in the home. And today I
(36:23):
have observed many parents leave all that stuff to the
educational system. They expect that the schools are going to
teach their children how to become adults. No, that cannot
happen at the school level. It has to happen in
(36:44):
the home and I think that people have become so
obsessed with material things, to have a bigger television set,
to have more computers, you know, other usual stuff, that
they spend huge amounts of time at work and hardly
(37:04):
any time at home, and hardly any time with their children.
So it really has to start happening in the home.
Spend more time talking to your children, find out what
their interests are, support any sort of artistic interests or
(37:24):
any interest that they have. And also, you know, model
through your own behavior male and femaleness that makes sense
to you. In other words, do not go to those
extremes that we have described, you know, like the toxic
(37:45):
masculinity or the very sort of feminized sensitive male right,
and the same applies to to women. You know, you
don't want someone who hates men, become one of those
you know, really hateful feminists. Nor do you want to
become someone who only wants to have children and be
(38:05):
married and have no other sort of goals in life
than having children. So I really think it has to
start at home, and then it also has to start
in school. You know, right from the get go, we
got to have more male teachers, We got to have
(38:27):
more male models everywhere, and you are a very good one.
But for example, when I attended medical school, I graduated
in nineteen sixty one in medicine at the UFT, I
think we had about fifteen women in our class there
and something like one hundred and twenty five men. Today,
(38:51):
the majority are women, and this is going to increase.
As you put it a few minutes ago, we might
come to the point where eighty percent of the doctors
are going to be women. This again is not a
good thing. It's not a good thing in terms of
for boys to see someone like me, you know that
(39:15):
I go to the doctor to or someone who like
me who teaches me. We still have, you know, we
still have men in positions like you know, presidents of
banks and you know, large corporations. But even that is changing.
And that's fine as long as it's equal. But I
(39:38):
think that any sort of huge majority of one sex
or the other is not good for the rest of
the population.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Scott Galloway, who is a professor strategy in a business
school at New York University Podcasters has said that the
problem is we don't have the appropriate male role models
anymore in leadership, and I think he uh he looks, uh,
you know, at the most senior leadership in the United
States as one example of this, and he says that
(40:10):
the too often sort of the examples that we've got
our men excuse the language, being assholes and uh, and
that what we need to do is we we need
to remind ourselves that what used to be being a
man was being strong, being generous, being a good father,
(40:31):
being a good provider, being loving and uh and and
that sort of identity of maleness has been lost in
our society today.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Do you feel that, sir.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yes, I feel that. But unfortunately, you know what you
said in terms of let's say that the administration in
the United States, there are a lot of parents who
point to that particular president and say, hey, you see,
there is a man, he knows, he knows what to do.
We love him, we look up to him. So you
(41:04):
are getting really, you know, their wrong picture, at least
in your in my eyes. But you know, half of
the population in the United States, so close to half,
admire the present administration, and so that is a huge problem.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
He also, you know, criticizes our society as I think
you have in regards to material prosperity, and he holds
Elon Muskop as an example. He says, you know, for
some reason, because this guy's a billionaire, we think that
he is the perfect example. But yet, you know, he's
been sued by several ex wives right now for custody.
(41:49):
He's got numerous different ex wives, numerous children from numerous
different marriages. Can't seem to keep a relationship. That's not
what should be defined as the of the perfect man.
But he's a millionaire, so a lot of people think
it is.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Well again, you know, I'm going back to what I
said several times before. There is a lack of analysis.
There's a lack of just what you now describe. You know,
look at al omsk Yes, he is a billionaire, but
also look at him as a human being, and the
same as the president, he is a convicted felon. He
(42:27):
has been convicted in court for trying to i think
rape at least one woman, probably more than one. And
yet people don't seem to notice that, or at least
his followers minimize that totally. So again, you know, parents
(42:49):
have to point this out to their children, just like
you have pointed it out, and those who don't seem
to be able to well, you know, they are going
to raise children who will be just like that, and
this is a going to be a huge problem.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
If you had a young man come to your practicer
that you know was sort of this typical example of
the individual that had been taken captive by toxic masculinity,
that you know had joined in cell, that was living
in his mother's basement, that hated women, et cetera, what.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Would you tell him?
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Well, first of all, I don't tell my patients too much.
I like to help them see on their own what
would be the right thing to do. So, if he
came to me and he was unhappy and depressed, which
is why I guess, which is what I would guess
would bring him to me, Not a discussion of philosophy
(43:52):
or politics. Excuse me, Well, I would try to find
out what is making him depressed and why he's living
in his parents' basement and why he's not going out
and looking for a job. And he would probably tell
me that he's not interested in anything and that he
(44:14):
likes playing on his computer games. And then I would
ask him more questions about what does he think the
future holds for him? So, in other ways, I would
like to lead him to think about his predicament or
position and gradually open him up to other ways of
(44:38):
looking at life.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
You quote The Economist in your article, and it's really
interesting you say that a team of reporters from The
Economist spoke with young adults in twenty countries and found
a recurring theme. University educated heterosexual women often expressed frustration
over the short of well educated, open minded men for
(45:02):
romantic relationships. Meanwhile, many young, young working class men complain
that feminism has overreached and is limiting opportunities for men.
It seems like both men and women are frustrated with
the current situation.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Yes, exactly, exactly, but more men than women, like a
greater number of men than women. But women too are unhappy.
A lot of young people nowadays, I'm sure you have
been to restaurants. You see a couple young, old whatever
sitting and each one of them is looking at their
(45:40):
little cell phone, and they're not talking to each other, right,
just talking looking at their cell phone. I understand that
more and more people don't know how to make small talk.
They are so used to texting, they don't know how
to actually sit down with another person and talk.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
Well, maybe This is going to raise one last issue
that I'd like to ask you about and the impact
of social media and dating apps. Let's take a break,
a final break, and come back with some concluding comments
with our guest doctor Thomas Vernie in just two minutes.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
To stay with us, everyone back.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Into stream us live at SAGA nine to six am
dot CA.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
A welcome back, everyone to the Brian Crome Radio Hour.
I've got doctor Thomas Vernie with us tonight. Is a
clinical psychiatrist. He's written a really interesting article called the
Complex Crisis Facing Men Today and we've been chatting about it.
(46:51):
I got one last question to ask you about, sir.
You haven't talked about this in your article, but you
just mentioned the impact of social media.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
I read this really interesting article.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
It said that part of the problem is social media
and dating apps, and it said that on dating apps today,
eighty percent of the attention of females goes to twenty
percent of the men that appear to be the most wealthy,
and eighty percent of the male attention goes to the
twenty percent of the females that appear to be the
(47:21):
most beautiful. So females are attracted to wealth and men
are attracted to beauty, and there's a whole bunch of
non economically successful men that aren't getting any attention, aren't
getting any dates, and there's a whole bunch of less
than attractive females that aren't getting any dates. And it
says that in a normal society, people would have met
(47:44):
people and been happy and got married and had families
and been very happy. But now you've got this because
everyone's connected dating apps or social media or whatnot. There's
way too much attention to the wealthy men and way
too much attention to the beautiful females.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
What do you think about that, sir.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Oh boy, that's a real disaster. It's a recipe for disaster. Also,
it's a recipe for lying. Like a lot of these
a lot of these posts on the dating sites are
not true. Sometimes they don't. If they show a picture,
it's not even their own picture, it's not even their
own photograph. But it certainly tells you that meeting meeting
(48:32):
the right person is becoming more and more difficult because
men are looking for something different from what women are
looking for. And I don't think it's just wells. I
think that women are looking for security, it's not just money,
but you know, if they have if the man has
a good job, there is a certain degree of security.
(48:54):
Also women are many of the women are professionals or
have a good job. They don't want to be involved
with a guy who is who is not making a
lot of money and actually will take away some of
their money. So there are kinds of concerns going on.
(49:14):
Men only being interested in beauty. That's rather disappointing. I
didn't know that, but it doesn't come as a surprise,
but it is disappointing, and it points out the difficulty
of meeting that Like the economists, for example that you
(49:35):
read discussed that women are having problems in real life,
like not even through ads and dating sites, but just
in real life meeting men that they find attractive, not
just physically, but you know, just an interesting person. You
(49:55):
will never be able to really get a good idea
of the person if you are just texting or corresponding.
I mean you really have to. I mean, zoom is
pretty good, but you know, I see some patients and
zoom and I see some patients in person, and person
(50:17):
is so much better. I mean, you just pick up
more of the person when you are actually sitting with
them face to face.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
So no question, I agree with you completely.
Speaker 4 (50:30):
You know, it's a good substitute. It's better than just
being on the telephone. But it's not the same. And
so these dating sites really are not not a good
way of meeting of meeting someone. It's much better way,
(50:50):
I would say, you know, join some join some interest groups,
you know, join a golf club, join a join a
bridge club, you know, become a volunteer, meet people in person.
You're much better off that way.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Doctor Thomas Vernie, thank you so much for joining us.
I really appreciate you. I appreciate you joining us. This
article was fascinating. I look forward to the next column
and hopefully another conversation with you, sir. That's our show
for tonight. Everybody, thank you for joining. I remind you
on I'm on every Monday through Friday at six o'clock
on nine sixty am. You can stuam me online at
triblew NINEM sixty TRIBLEWSAGA nine sixty am dot C on
(51:29):
my podcast. The videos go up on my website Briancromby
dot com, on social media, on podcast servers, and on
my YouTube website as soon as the radio show goes
to air and I get the pleasure all the time.
I've interviewing some really fascinating people, and doctor Vernie is
unquestionably one of them.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Sir, really appreciate you joining us. Good night everybody, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
It is a real pleasure.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
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 (00:18):
Good evening and everyone, and welcome to the Brian Cromey
Radio Hour.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I've had the pleasure of interviewing doctor Thomas Vernie before,
and I've got him back because he's written a very
interesting article titled the Complex Crisis Facing Men Today, and
it's a really interesting review of one of these issues
that I think have really come up of note of late,
where numerous different commentators are talking about the challenge of masculinity.
(00:45):
Some people are calling toxic masculinity, and then people reacting
that no, it's a problem and we've got to address it,
and other people say, no, no, it's not a problem
at all. You know, it's mean have been this, had
this privileged position forever, and they're just complaining that they've
lost this privileged position. Thomas, Doctor Thomas Vernie is a
fascinating person. He's a clinical psycho psychiatrist. He's an academic.
(01:07):
He's an award winning author. He's a public speaker, he's
a poet, and he's a podcaster. He is the author
of eight books, including the global bestseller The Secret Life
of the Unborn Child and twenty twenty one's The Embodied Mind,
Understanding the mysteries of cellular memory, consciousness and our bodies.
And as I mentioned, I've had the pleasure of interviewing
him before, so it's a real pleasure to have doctor
(01:28):
Vernie back again. So doctor Vernie, what is the complex
crisis facing men today?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Sir Well, Brian, I think you put it very well
in the introduction. You know, different people seem to have
a different view of it, but there is simply no
doubt that men are having a problem with identity. Of course,
men are not one homogeneous entity. You know, they are
(01:57):
young men, they're older man, they're retired man. They are
men who are racialized, they are immigrant men. There are
you know, men who are working like yourself, white collar men,
white colored jobs. Then they are men who are working
on farms. So you know, all of these different groups
(02:19):
have different problems. So I just want to make it
very clear that you know, it's not all men who
are having the problems that, as you said in your introduction,
of a lot of journalists and other people, politicians for example,
are calling a crisis and The problem is that particularly
(02:44):
young men are having problems finding a job. That's a
really really big problem, and especially when they don't have
a formal education beyond high school, let's say. And also
if they don't have if they if they are not
(03:06):
like plumbers, electricians, people who have really good what do
you call those jobs, it's escaping me for the moment labor, right,
So people who are essentially out of high school but
have no specialized training, either in those uh skilled labor
(03:31):
markets or of course in computers, they're having huge problems.
So that's one thing. The other thing is that sort
of the definition of masculinity has really changed. You know,
at one time, we had you know, we had the Westerns,
(03:52):
we had you know, Jerry, you know, we we we
had like Gun Smoke for example, or Have Gun Will Travel,
which was one of my favorites. I love that show.
Probably before your time. But masculinity was very clearly defined
like strong, silent, honest, a good provider, looked after the
(04:18):
family or looked after the estate. Much of that has
sort of disappeared. Being strong and silent is definitely not
in vogue.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
You've got to be empathetic and vulnerable.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
And open exactly exactly, and that for many young people
even today is seen as soft. Okay, oh my god.
Some people might even think I am gay if I
am too soft, right, So there's confusion. Confusion is raining women.
(04:54):
I mean, as a psychiatrist, you know, over the years,
I've seen many many couples and it's almost the same
refrain that I hear from the wife. He never talks
to me about his feelings. That's usually what I have
gotten over the years, and still and still get. Men
(05:16):
are not good at talking about their feelings. And some
of that, as I explain in my article, some of
that is just simply biological. Men are in terms of
their brains different from women. Women have a much better
connection between the two parts of the brain, the left
(05:37):
and the right brain. Men don't have that good connection.
It's called the corpus colossum, and it's like a bridge
that connects the two brains. And women that way, are
much more intuitive, They are much more in touch with
their feeling and also are their language is more developed
(05:59):
than men, so they don't have any problems talking about
their feelings. Men have problems just biologically but also culturally
because strong silent is still in many quarters seen as
the best way for a man to be. So we
(06:20):
have all these problems, but I think I should make
it very clear that women have their problems too. It's
not just it's not just men. Okay, there is this
vitriol against women in power, as we have seen in
the elections for example, in the United States recently, but
it's all over the world. You know, therese arise in
(06:42):
domestic violence and femicide. There is persistent pay inequality with
women in Canada, you know, in western part of Canada,
when where there are a lot of Native women, they
have been abused, they have been killed at a much
(07:03):
higher rate than men have been killed. So I think
all of us are having problems, and I think it
is so important to realize that we have these problems
and that we need to do something about it.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
The issue that you talk about in regards to men
not getting jobs is far larger, is it not.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, the.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Comments that people have mentioned and the statistics I think
bear out is that they're not just finding getting jobs difficult.
It's finding relationships, it's finding meaning, it's finding identity, it's
finding a place in society. Let me quote from your article.
If I could you say whether in not Maalatia or
anywhere else men feel left out, not needed, or not valued.
(07:50):
The likelihood of them becoming depressed and suicidal or angry
and violent increases exponentially. They also occupy a growing presence
in the manner a loose network of communities that claim
to dress men's struggles. These groups are united by an
opposition to feminism and cast men as victims of the
current social and political climate. I heard Governor Newsom of
(08:13):
California recently, and he was talking about how graduation rates
for males in secondary, post secondary and for sure in
graduate programs diminishing dramatically, such that he thinks that in
ten years there's going to be one third male two
thirds female graduates of post second educations in California. How
(08:35):
suicide rates have doubled, if not more than doubled in
California for young men. And he talked about how in
his own Democratic Party, the vast majority of people, not
just females, but people dismiss this as completely irrelevant and
they don't see it. And politically, in the last election,
(08:57):
both Donald Trump and the United States and Pierre Paulia
in Canada exploited this, and you saw a dramatic increase
in young men voting for right wing parties. So this
is more than just not getting jobs.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
What's going on, Well, it's a feeling of displacement, as
I have put it, you know, in my piece for
the Globe and Mail confusion. And when there are people,
particularly on the internet, you know, who promise you easy
(09:30):
solutions two very complex problems, young men are attracted to that.
There is also a lack of education in many parts
of the Western world, particularly in the United States, but
also in Canada, where very often children are not taught
(09:55):
to really analyze a problem in other ways, to look
at it in terms of pros and cons to debate things,
to discuss as you and I are right now, you know,
different views. This is less and less taught in schools,
(10:16):
and so a lot of people don't have the capacity to,
let's say, read something or hear something on the internet
and actually think about this, like is this really logical?
Does this make sense? What is the evidence? Nobody is
teaching them that.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
We're gonna have to take a break for some messages,
and I want to come back. I can ask doctor
Vernie about you know, some of the negative side effects
of some of the negative impacts of this trend, this
manosphere that he talks about. But frankly, that manosphere has become,
you know, almost this toxic masculinity, this in cells, these
you know, the typified by this description which may mean
(10:59):
a be accurate of young men in their mother's basements
playing video games and not being able to form relationships
and what's going on.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We're going to take a.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Break and come back with doctor Bernie and just to
and stay with us everybody.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Cromey Radio. Doctor Thomas
Vernie with us today. He is a clinical psychiatrist, he's
an academic. He's an award winning author, public speaker, poet
and podcaster, and he's recently written a fascinating column in
The Globe Mail called the Complex Crisis facing Men Today. Men,
especially young men, are reacting to a rapidly changing world.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Let me if I could, sir.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Just read a little bit from your article again, if
I could, you say. Richard Weaves, a British American scholar,
argues that men are struggling to adapt to rapid and
unsettling social transformations. He contends that the advancement of women's rights,
combined with the economy's move from physical labor to knowledge
based work, has deprived many men of what Scottish psychiatrist
(12:13):
Are de Lean called ontological security, a stable sense of identity.
Rhea's warns that men now face the danger of becoming
culturally redundant, culturally redundant. You know, we've heard these comments
about these INCEELL organizations, communities of young men that blame
(12:34):
females for all of their ills, that are living in
their mother's basements, that they're playing video games, that can't
form relationships, that can't find dates, that can't find partners,
that aren't getting married, that are not having kids, that
are not getting mortgages and houses, and they're blaming feminism
and women's liberation and women for their problems. And an
(12:58):
overlized feminine school system or or or or or or
feminism of the school system. Gavin Newson talks about no male.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Real model role models.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Barack Obama, the former president United States, said that particularly
in the black community, this was a real problem with
lack of male role models and and and he challenged
fathers that they've got to play a far bigger role.
It's almost as if everything you just described about sort
of the bonanza or gun smoke or a strong male
(13:31):
role model of the past is no longer looked upon
as positive and uh. And what's happening is that you
either have to be this effeminate, emphathetic, vulnerable, almost feminized
version or you.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
End up being this toxic masculinity version. What's going on, sir?
How do you see this?
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Well? As you put it? You know, those two extremes,
the talk sick, vulgar, aggressive male or the feminized male
are the two extremes really, And what we have to
do is to try to find some space in the middle.
I think that Obama and you come and many others
(14:20):
who have spoken on this are right. You know, in
some ways, young young children only get female teachers. I
don't know whether I put it in my article or
not because it has been sometime since I've written it.
But for example, from the moment that children are born,
(14:40):
mothers mothers relate different mothers and fathers relate differently to
their children depending on their sex. If the child is female,
the mother will speak differently, much more emotionally to her daughter,
and the father will do sort of much more rambunctuous,
(15:02):
sort of athletic things with his little son, like throw
him up in the air and catch him, or just
sort of, you know, play kind of rough and tumble games,
which he would not with the daughter. So gradually, right
from the moment that children are born, they are treated differently.
When they go to kindergarten, when they go to nursery school,
(15:24):
it's always female female teachers who they have. In public school,
it's mostly female teachers. One of my friends was going
to volunteer to look after some Sea cadets in Hamilton
(15:44):
and he found that whereas a few years ago there
was something like seventy five Sea cadets in Hamilton, now
they are only fifteen. And one of the reasons is
that they have got two female officers, whereas in the
past they at male officers. So imagine sikadets having two
(16:04):
female officers like this is not a good role model
for boys, no matter how competent the female officer may be,
not when you are trying to learn about boyhood masculinity.
So having more males in the teaching professions, having more
(16:29):
males at universities, that would really really help. But the
most important thing is to try to get focused on
the middle between those two extremes that you have just mentioned,
because the people on the extremes are very persuasive, they
(16:52):
have a strong presence on the Internet, whereas people like
you and I, who I think you know would tend
to be more in the middle, uh, don't have such
a strong voice. And so people are being like like
(17:12):
a magnet, They're just being pulled in these extremes. And
that's the problem because once you have those two extremes,
they dislike each other. There is antagonism, There is a
lot of dislike and fighting and violence, and the world
(17:34):
is just going further and further into a terrible mess.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
But the the the the the right wing, you know,
Pierre Paula of Donald Trump, uh, and you know some
of the commentators, whether they be Josh Robin Rogan or
or others in the United States and in Canada have
really appealed to this this uh. You know, I'm not
going to suggest toxic masculinity, but this this very strong
(18:01):
masculine attitude that's almost anti feminine at times, and certainly
maybe not feminine, but feminism and women's liberation. You know,
I've interviewed people that have talked about the problem being,
you know, the nineteen sixties and the sexual revolution and
the pill and abortion, that that gave females a very
(18:22):
different opportunity, and that took away that opportunity from men
and changed sort of society fairly dramatically, and that women
have adapted to that and have adapted well, but men
haven't adapted. And it's almost as if some of these
men are blaming women. And you know, again, to quote
your article if I could, a number of men in
(18:43):
the West believe that women are as sending to positions
of prestige and power that they once held. It is
a kind of cultural teeter Tatar. Women are seen as
rising triumphant, while men in free fall feel defeated and angry.
It's hard to measure, but it seems to me an
equal number of women think just the opposite, given the
erosion of reproductive rights, the rise of domestic violence and femicide,
(19:05):
persistent paid equality, and the vitrial women in power face
daily online and in the media. So women aren't happy,
are devastated?
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Yes, Well, you know another problem that we have not mentioned,
and that I run up against when I speak to
men in particular. Is this vocism that's going on? Okay,
like this sort of changing of terms that we have
always used into something else. For example, in schools, you
(19:39):
cannot say student, you have to say learner. In my
own particular area, which has for a long time, psychiatry
and obstetrics, you cannot say breastfeeding women. You have to
say are you ready for this? Chest feeding women? Just
(20:00):
feeding people? Sorry, not breastfeeding. You cannot say pregnant women.
You have to say pregnant people. This is ridiculous. I
have never met a pregnant non women. And to you know,
you can't say problems, you have to say challenges. So
(20:23):
men feel that they are being force fed. What they
see are these sort of feminist ways of looking at
the world, and they don't like it. Men also, by
and large, biologically and also historically, tend to be more
conservative than women. They are conservative because, like you just mentioned,
(20:48):
they had prestige, they had power, and they see it
see that losing, so obviously they don't like it.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
So is this just a power grab them that men
don't like the fact that power has been taken away
from them, that money has been taken away from them.
That you know that the obligation for a female to
submit to them in a marriage that would have been
an attitude that I've actually heard recently, but that you know,
it's probably an attitude from the nineteen fifties and before
have been taken away. You know, Is this just greed
(21:21):
or jealousy that men just want the power back again.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I think that it's mostly unconscious. I don't think that
they really you know, if you spoke to a man
about this, they probably would not admit to it. But
I think it's there. And the sort of the need
to blame someone is very human. Okay, when a person
(21:47):
goes wrong in any which way, the immediate knee jerk
reaction is to blame someone, not me. Wasn't my fault,
you know, my wife made me do it, right, I
didn't do it. Oh. In the United States, it's the immigrants, okay,
or it's the blacks, the Greens, the yellows, whatever, just
not me. So there is this kind of a reaction
(22:11):
to blame women when actually, you know, all they have
done really is to get back equality, which they definitely deserve.
Of course, we should all be equal, but for men,
it seems like they are better off than they were,
and therefore there's resentment.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I want to come back.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
To you know, feminism and femininity in a minute, and
females if I could, But before I go there, you
do talk about socialization a lot in your article about
how mothers and fathers tap treat their offspring male or
female very differently. But you also talk, which I found
quite interesting, about the role of testosterone and estrogen. Could
(22:56):
you elaborate on that a little bit? Tell us, you know,
as a as a as a as a doctor, as
a clinical psychiatrist, what is the role of testosterone and estrogen.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah, well, they're very different obviously, you know, they're the
main They are the main sex hormones that we have
both in men and women. From the moment that you
are actually conceived or very shortly after in males, you
start producing testosterone and in women estrogen, and that is
(23:32):
going to shape and sculp your brain and the rest
of your body, of course as it's developing. But from
my perspective, most importantly it's it's really the brain. I mean,
obviously the sexual organs and all that will be influenced
by testosterone and estrogen and progesterone and many of the
other hormones, but testosterone is the one that really is
(23:57):
most influential in men, and it has a kind of
aggressive component to it. It makes a person more ready
to become physical, whether that is just work or whether
(24:18):
it's violence. When there is testosterone, when there is a
lack of serotonin, which is another hormone in the body,
neuro hormone, then very often that will increase violence or
(24:38):
propensity to a tendency to violence, whereas estrogen is a
much more calming hormone. And then there are other hormones
like oxytocin and vasopressin, again very different excuse me, in
males and females. Oxytocin is produced much more in women,
(25:01):
vasopressant much more in men, And again vasopressin is a
more aggressive hormone. Oxytocin is a very social hormone. So
women who have oxytocin and estrogen as opposed to men
who have vasopressin and testosterone, there is a real biological
(25:22):
difference there, which does not in any way, of course,
justify males becoming violent, but there is a greater propensity
for violence bio logically speaking, or aggressiveness or competitiveness in
men than it is in women.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
And one of the.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Things that you talk about in your article, which I
think people know but you need to be reminded about,
is you talk about the role of testosterone in females.
So there is estrogen in males, and there is testosterone
and females.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Correct, yes, And testosterone is very important in women in
terms of sexual a sexual drive, a desire to have
sexual relations, and it slowly starts disappearing with age, and
pretty well disappears by the time menopause comes around. So
(26:14):
then of course that creates some more problems because you
may be married to a man in whom there is
still plenty of testosterone, but the woman has none, and
so she has no sexual desire. He still has some,
which might lead to some problems in the relationship. Tell
me about the role of estrogen in males, well, the
(26:37):
role in estrogen in males makes them more loving, also
the same as opocin. Interestingly enough, every time, every time
you dance, every time you have a good meal, you
produce dopamine and oxytocin, and so that will make that
(26:59):
particular activity pleasant, which means that you will want to
have more of it. Which is great for women. For example,
when they breastfeed, they produce oxytocin and dopamine which will
make them ready to breastfeed again. So the way nature
sets this up is very clever. But once you run
(27:23):
out of oxytocin and vasive pressing, which also happens over
the years, there is much less and less of that
in your system, and you may become less social and
less interested in making friendships.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
We're going to take a break for some messages. I'm
going to come back in two minutes with doctor Thomas
Vernie and talk about.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Femininity and feminism and the female side of the equations.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Stay with us, everyone back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on Sagay ninety
sixty am CN.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
I've went to the Brian crime radio war. I've got
doctor Thomas Vernie with us tonight. He is a clinical psychiatrist,
he's an academic. He's an award winning author, public speaker,
poet and podcaster. He's written a really interesting column recently
called the Complex Crisis Facing Men Today, and we've talked
about h the challenges that that many men, particularly less
(28:35):
educated u UH in rural communities that have lost this
sort of sense of meaning and they become you know,
some people would describe this sort of very toxic masculinity
and the description of of of them having problems having
forming relationships, finding dates, getting marriages, uh, and and developing
(28:59):
into that uh that you know, that model that we
have of of of of a person getting the mortgage
by a house, having kids, uh, forming a stable long
term relationship.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And it seems to be challenged today.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
You you don't address this in the article, but you
sort of raise it right near the end and you
call it as a question that females are also having
some challenges. And it's interesting, Uh, doctor, I've had numerous
conversations of Lake that have said one of the by
products of this is also that it is more challenging,
more difficult even for some females to feel feminine and
(29:35):
to and to and to focus on their femininity and uh,
and that they're being told by society that they've got
to be more like a man, that they've got to
be more successful in their career. They they've got to
get a job, they've got to be in the workforce,
and that to take time to be a mother, to
take to be a housewife, to be to be feminine
(29:56):
is frowned upon by society. So so if female has
been in pacted by this sort of trend as well.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Well, yes, as you put it, you put it very correctly.
There is a strong now movement, particularly in the United States,
where again you know, there are some highly well popular.
(30:25):
I was going to say respected, but I think I
would rather like to say popular. They are popular speakers,
popular women speakers who attract hundreds and thousands of women
to their websites and to some of their conferences where
they tell women that they should have that they should
(30:48):
stop working and become housewives again and have children. I mean,
this huge sort of focus and having children is incredible.
In the twenty first century, what we are witnessing is
like a real oh, you know, going back to the
(31:11):
seventeenth century or something. And the more children you have,
the better. And in this article that I wrote in
the Globe and Mail, I'm quoting one woman I wish
I think your name was Clark. Do you have my
(31:31):
paper in front of you by any chance?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I do, I'm looking for it right now.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Sir, kay. So where are we. It's towards the end.
Let's see.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
What were you saying.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I was saying about the fact that there are some
women now, very popular women who are telling other women
that they should not work, they should withdraw from working,
and that they should have children. And like one woman
(32:20):
by the name of Clark, I think was telling was
telling women that they She came out with this absolutely
ridiculous statement less prozac, more protein. I'm not quite sure
what she meant by that. Also, also, she was single
(32:42):
and had no children, and yet she had thousands of
people listening to her telling them that they should have children.
So again, you know, I'm coming back to the fact
that people have just not and to question, to analyze,
(33:03):
to ask questions about like how does this make sense?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So you know, what do we do about this?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
And you meant and you end with us saying that
you know, you're not quite sure what the remedy is.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
But you know, let's talk about this a little bit.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
If if we've had this big trend in society that
was affected by the sexual revolution of the nineteen sixties,
by the pill, by women's liberation, by by abortion, et cetera,
and and and and assuming that we believe that equality
is is is add and role in something that we
(33:42):
want and that control over your reproductive rights is something
that we that we think is positive and uh and
that you know, misogyny is bad.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
You know, you go through the things.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
But at the same time, what is happening, it would appear,
is that maybe because of globalization, maybe because of technology,
maybe because of a lot of other trends, there is
this uh segment of society that is young men in
uh in in rural communities or former blue collar communities
that are as you say, finding meaning, uh, not finding
(34:17):
meaning and uh and and and being in despair. That
suicide is up, the graduation rates are up, that I understand,
addictions are up, uh, you know, all trends that we
don't like. So that men are feeling challenged, particularly young
men are feeling challenged in their maleness and in their
desire for success. And some females are finding challenges in
(34:42):
in their in their inability to or at least society's
restrictions on their their their ability to to be feminine
and uh and and and and.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
And take what would have been historically feminine choices. How
do we how do we how do we address all this?
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Do we just not or do we have to do
something about it, because right now we would appear that
at least the right wing commentators are taking advantage of
this lack of meaning that people are are faced with
and struggling with and are developing either as you say this,
(35:21):
you know, almost step for wife kind of attitude within
conservative females, or this toxic masculinity trend within males. And
you know, we saw it in Canada with this you know,
freedom movement during the Trucker convoy.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
So what do we do as a society, sir.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Well, I think we start this parenting. I think that
parents have to pay much more attention to their children,
both male and female, and teach them both by modeling.
In other words, they themselves living the right life and
(36:01):
also verbal attitudes communication, what it means to be a
human being in the twenty first century, to be a
good person, to be a thinking person, a caring person.
This has to start in the home. And today I
(36:23):
have observed many parents leave all that stuff to the
educational system. They expect that the schools are going to
teach their children how to become adults. No, that cannot
happen at the school level. It has to happen in
(36:44):
the home and I think that people have become so
obsessed with material things, to have a bigger television set,
to have more computers, you know, other usual stuff, that
they spend huge amounts of time at work and hardly
(37:04):
any time at home, and hardly any time with their children.
So it really has to start happening in the home.
Spend more time talking to your children, find out what
their interests are, support any sort of artistic interests or
(37:24):
any interest that they have. And also, you know, model
through your own behavior male and femaleness that makes sense
to you. In other words, do not go to those
extremes that we have described, you know, like the toxic
(37:45):
masculinity or the very sort of feminized sensitive male right,
and the same applies to to women. You know, you
don't want someone who hates men, become one of those
you know, really hateful feminists. Nor do you want to
become someone who only wants to have children and be
(38:05):
married and have no other sort of goals in life
than having children. So I really think it has to
start at home, and then it also has to start
in school. You know, right from the get go, we
got to have more male teachers, We got to have
(38:27):
more male models everywhere, and you are a very good one.
But for example, when I attended medical school, I graduated
in nineteen sixty one in medicine at the UFT, I
think we had about fifteen women in our class there
and something like one hundred and twenty five men. Today,
(38:51):
the majority are women, and this is going to increase.
As you put it a few minutes ago, we might
come to the point where eighty percent of the doctors
are going to be women. This again is not a
good thing. It's not a good thing in terms of
for boys to see someone like me, you know that
(39:15):
I go to the doctor to or someone who like
me who teaches me. We still have, you know, we
still have men in positions like you know, presidents of
banks and you know, large corporations. But even that is changing.
And that's fine as long as it's equal. But I
(39:38):
think that any sort of huge majority of one sex
or the other is not good for the rest of
the population.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Scott Galloway, who is a professor strategy in a business
school at New York University Podcasters has said that the
problem is we don't have the appropriate male role models
anymore in leadership, and I think he uh he looks, uh,
you know, at the most senior leadership in the United
States as one example of this, and he says that
(40:10):
the too often sort of the examples that we've got
our men excuse the language, being assholes and uh, and
that what we need to do is we we need
to remind ourselves that what used to be being a
man was being strong, being generous, being a good father,
(40:31):
being a good provider, being loving and uh and and
that sort of identity of maleness has been lost in
our society today.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Do you feel that, sir.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yes, I feel that. But unfortunately, you know what you
said in terms of let's say that the administration in
the United States, there are a lot of parents who
point to that particular president and say, hey, you see,
there is a man, he knows, he knows what to do.
We love him, we look up to him. So you
(41:04):
are getting really, you know, their wrong picture, at least
in your in my eyes. But you know, half of
the population in the United States, so close to half,
admire the present administration, and so that is a huge problem.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
He also, you know, criticizes our society as I think
you have in regards to material prosperity, and he holds
Elon Muskop as an example. He says, you know, for
some reason, because this guy's a billionaire, we think that
he is the perfect example. But yet, you know, he's
been sued by several ex wives right now for custody.
(41:49):
He's got numerous different ex wives, numerous children from numerous
different marriages. Can't seem to keep a relationship. That's not
what should be defined as the of the perfect man.
But he's a millionaire, so a lot of people think
it is.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Well again, you know, I'm going back to what I
said several times before. There is a lack of analysis.
There's a lack of just what you now describe. You know,
look at al omsk Yes, he is a billionaire, but
also look at him as a human being, and the
same as the president, he is a convicted felon. He
(42:27):
has been convicted in court for trying to i think
rape at least one woman, probably more than one. And
yet people don't seem to notice that, or at least
his followers minimize that totally. So again, you know, parents
(42:49):
have to point this out to their children, just like
you have pointed it out, and those who don't seem
to be able to well, you know, they are going
to raise children who will be just like that, and
this is a going to be a huge problem.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
If you had a young man come to your practicer
that you know was sort of this typical example of
the individual that had been taken captive by toxic masculinity,
that you know had joined in cell, that was living
in his mother's basement, that hated women, et cetera, what.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Would you tell him?
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Well, first of all, I don't tell my patients too much.
I like to help them see on their own what
would be the right thing to do. So, if he
came to me and he was unhappy and depressed, which
is why I guess, which is what I would guess
would bring him to me, Not a discussion of philosophy
(43:52):
or politics. Excuse me, Well, I would try to find
out what is making him depressed and why he's living
in his parents' basement and why he's not going out
and looking for a job. And he would probably tell
me that he's not interested in anything and that he
(44:14):
likes playing on his computer games. And then I would
ask him more questions about what does he think the
future holds for him? So, in other ways, I would
like to lead him to think about his predicament or
position and gradually open him up to other ways of
(44:38):
looking at life.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
You quote The Economist in your article, and it's really
interesting you say that a team of reporters from The
Economist spoke with young adults in twenty countries and found
a recurring theme. University educated heterosexual women often expressed frustration
over the short of well educated, open minded men for
(45:02):
romantic relationships. Meanwhile, many young, young working class men complain
that feminism has overreached and is limiting opportunities for men.
It seems like both men and women are frustrated with
the current situation.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Yes, exactly, exactly, but more men than women, like a
greater number of men than women. But women too are unhappy.
A lot of young people nowadays, I'm sure you have
been to restaurants. You see a couple young, old whatever
sitting and each one of them is looking at their
(45:40):
little cell phone, and they're not talking to each other, right,
just talking looking at their cell phone. I understand that
more and more people don't know how to make small talk.
They are so used to texting, they don't know how
to actually sit down with another person and talk.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
Well, maybe This is going to raise one last issue
that I'd like to ask you about and the impact
of social media and dating apps. Let's take a break,
a final break, and come back with some concluding comments
with our guest doctor Thomas Vernie in just two minutes.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
To stay with us, everyone back.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Into stream us live at SAGA nine to six am
dot CA.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
A welcome back, everyone to the Brian Crome Radio Hour.
I've got doctor Thomas Vernie with us tonight. Is a
clinical psychiatrist. He's written a really interesting article called the
Complex Crisis Facing Men Today and we've been chatting about it.
(46:51):
I got one last question to ask you about, sir.
You haven't talked about this in your article, but you
just mentioned the impact of social media.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
I read this really interesting article.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
It said that part of the problem is social media
and dating apps, and it said that on dating apps today,
eighty percent of the attention of females goes to twenty
percent of the men that appear to be the most wealthy,
and eighty percent of the male attention goes to the
twenty percent of the females that appear to be the
(47:21):
most beautiful. So females are attracted to wealth and men
are attracted to beauty, and there's a whole bunch of
non economically successful men that aren't getting any attention, aren't
getting any dates, and there's a whole bunch of less
than attractive females that aren't getting any dates. And it
says that in a normal society, people would have met
(47:44):
people and been happy and got married and had families
and been very happy. But now you've got this because
everyone's connected dating apps or social media or whatnot. There's
way too much attention to the wealthy men and way
too much attention to the beautiful females.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
What do you think about that, sir.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Oh boy, that's a real disaster. It's a recipe for disaster. Also,
it's a recipe for lying. Like a lot of these
a lot of these posts on the dating sites are
not true. Sometimes they don't. If they show a picture,
it's not even their own picture, it's not even their
own photograph. But it certainly tells you that meeting meeting
(48:32):
the right person is becoming more and more difficult because
men are looking for something different from what women are
looking for. And I don't think it's just wells. I
think that women are looking for security, it's not just money,
but you know, if they have if the man has
a good job, there is a certain degree of security.
(48:54):
Also women are many of the women are professionals or
have a good job. They don't want to be involved
with a guy who is who is not making a
lot of money and actually will take away some of
their money. So there are kinds of concerns going on.
(49:14):
Men only being interested in beauty. That's rather disappointing. I
didn't know that, but it doesn't come as a surprise,
but it is disappointing, and it points out the difficulty
of meeting that Like the economists, for example that you
(49:35):
read discussed that women are having problems in real life,
like not even through ads and dating sites, but just
in real life meeting men that they find attractive, not
just physically, but you know, just an interesting person. You
(49:55):
will never be able to really get a good idea
of the person if you are just texting or corresponding.
I mean you really have to. I mean, zoom is
pretty good, but you know, I see some patients and
zoom and I see some patients in person, and person
(50:17):
is so much better. I mean, you just pick up
more of the person when you are actually sitting with
them face to face.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
So no question, I agree with you completely.
Speaker 4 (50:30):
You know, it's a good substitute. It's better than just
being on the telephone. But it's not the same. And
so these dating sites really are not not a good
way of meeting of meeting someone. It's much better way,
(50:50):
I would say, you know, join some join some interest groups,
you know, join a golf club, join a join a
bridge club, you know, become a volunteer, meet people in person.
You're much better off that way.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Doctor Thomas Vernie, thank you so much for joining us.
I really appreciate you. I appreciate you joining us. This
article was fascinating. I look forward to the next column
and hopefully another conversation with you, sir. That's our show
for tonight. Everybody, thank you for joining. I remind you
on I'm on every Monday through Friday at six o'clock
on nine sixty am. You can stuam me online at
triblew NINEM sixty TRIBLEWSAGA nine sixty am dot C on
(51:29):
my podcast. The videos go up on my website Briancromby
dot com, on social media, on podcast servers, and on
my YouTube website as soon as the radio show goes
to air and I get the pleasure all the time.
I've interviewing some really fascinating people, and doctor Vernie is
unquestionably one of them.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Sir, really appreciate you joining us. Good night everybody, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
It is a real pleasure.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
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