Men vs. Society: Insights from Dr. Warren Farrell

Men feeling that they've been told masculinity is toxic, that they're part of the patriarchy, that the future is female. If a man explains what his problem, if he doesn't share his feelings, he's repressed, and that's a problem. But if he shares his feelings, he's mansplaining. If he reaches out too quickly to a woman, he's a sexual harasser. It's not quick enough. He's a wimp. These all create anger in men, and nobody understands that anger is vulnerabilities. Ask.

All right, Dr. Frell. Welcome back to the Man Talk Show. How you doing today?

Doing very well. And I'm so glad to be back with you. I had to remember a really wonderful connection with you last time.

Yeah, we had a really good conversation, and I. I hadn't realized that it had been so long. We had you. You were here in 2018.

Yes.

Which is crazy. I thought it was just a couple years ago, but I guess, I think.

When both of us were teenagers. I think that's right.

I was just graduating high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was saying a lot had changed, and I was like, I think, you know, we talked in 20. 20. 2021. But no, it's 2018. And so a lot has happened since then, which is marvelous. But there's so much I wanted to talk to you about. And we're gonna talk about your new book. But what I really want to start with is what's happening with men culturally. And so in your estimation, we're going to start broad. What's happening to young men in today's culture, and what are some of the forces that you think are. Are pressing on the male psyche in Western society?

I'd say probably what I found when I did the research for the Boy Crisis book is unfortunately even more true today. I hear more boys today saying some version of I wish I hadn't been born male, and saying that because they hear in school that if you're born male, you're part of the patriarchy, which means that you're part of a system in which the rules were made to benefit men at the expense of women, you're an oppressor, and the women are oppressed. They're hearing that the future is female. They're hearing masculinity being described as toxic, not sometimes toxic, and that women and men can both have toxic masculinity and femininity, that would be fine. But when they hear it's only males described as being toxic, it's just Sort of like they look inside of themselves and they say they look at if they're in college, which they're hearing dei and dei, of course, diversity, equity and inclusion. But they are feeling, wait a minute, this is diversity. But it doesn't include me.

Equity, but it doesn't include me. And. And inclusion definitely doesn't include me. And the evidence is all around the gender. White House Gender Policy Council. This is a gender policy council, explicitly excludes men and boys from their considerations. So how can you have a gender policy council that excludes men? Which means, by the way, it excludes gay men and it excludes black men. There's no group of men that are more greater jeopardy as a. As a group than black males in today's society.

And there's, you know, and. And gay men, you know, have many, many challenges still from discrimination on many levels. And yet the. The discrimination against gay men and the challenges of black men are not being considered by the White House Gender Policy Council. You know, but the average boy doesn't know that about the White House Gender Policy Council, but he does know what he hears in school about, know, okay, if you take initiatives, you know, he's 13, 14, 15 years of age, and he's just beginning to feel his hormones go. And he knows that if he. When he looks around the class, maybe he's 15, and he's seeing about half of the women in the class are women that he'd be interested in being sexual with within, you know, with, you know, a fair amount of delay, like 20 seconds. And the. And, you know, and yet he knows that if he moves too quickly, he's a sexual harasser. If he doesn't move quickly enough, he's considered a wimp. And the guys actually being successful with women.

Are the ones that move quickly, not the ones that move slowly.

But especially if he's been brought up by a mother, he's usually very sensitive and very sensitive to women's needs and cares. And so he doesn't want to move too quickly and he doesn't want to offend anybody. And yet he sees that he ends up being the loser. And so it's just us. So many conflicts. And the challenge is, you know, that, you know, the average boy in high school and. Or even in college is not reading the Boy Crisis book and figuring out what's, you know, what's going on inside and that this isn't just me isolated. You know, so many of the letters that I get from boys who. Young men usually, who eventually do read the Boy Crisis is that I feel like you are a spy in my life, that you've, that you see what I only thought I saw and that nobody else saw. And I, and it's made, it's made me feel a lot less lonely. In fact, these, these are words that since you and I spoke last, have come exactly from a male who said that before, before he read the Boy Crisis, he had been.

Working to be a mass shooter. And he had a 52 page manifesto, he had Dr. He had been part of Ichan and which is a group that trains that, you know, that has had a number of the mass shooters in the past. And he was, you know, going to make his mark on the world because as far as he was concerned, he was worthless and he wanted to stand out in some way. And, and when he felt seen for the first time when he read the book, that it was then that he felt like, oh, I did, you know, if I, I'm not alone, I'm not isolated. And that is really what turned him around. And I mean, it was so happy to have saved, in a way, his. Not just his life, but as he said, you know, it's not just my life you saved, it's the life of, you know, I was hoping for hundreds of people to be the number one mass shooter, you know, in the country after the last, you know, be even more so than the Las Vegas shooter type of thing. And so it's this type of loneliness and isolation, you know, that in addition to the pandemic and in addition to feeling like you're, you're the one who's toxic, that this is just alienating many boys. You know, usually when boys go to college, they're usually they, they lean Democrat and, and so they're not. But today, increasingly, the boys are moving over to the Republican Party. So we see that for the first time in American history, this enormous gender gap between young males going increasingly toward supporting Trump and young females saying, what? How can you possibly support Trump? You know, and going much more into Kamala Harris. And, and so that creates a gender divide in the family between boyfriends and girlfriends, between. And between men and women in general. That is, you know, that is very, very challenging and very sad because this loneliness is something that nobody wants. And when boys are lonely, they often become, you know, they often turn to porn. They into video games. And, you know, you know, you can look at porn and say a certain amount of porn is fine, but porn, like video games, when you get too much into them, they become addictive. And they also, for boys the porn becomes very dysfunctional because what you, as you get into porn, you, you become excited the first time you see a certain level, but then you need more and more stimulus. And as you get more and more stimulus, when you end up going out with a real.

Then oftentimes if you start behaving like is it like is in the porn things that you become addicted to, that woman feels very much treated like an object because she's being treated like an object. And so she then rejects him, which only increases his frustration, his loneliness, and his feeling like he's a loser. And so these are some of the deeply sad things that are happening today that were even happening to even a greater degree than when the Boy Crisis book came out in 2018 when you and I last talked.

There's so many good points in there that you touched on that I wanted to kind of hit on in this conversation. One of them is almost this, this systematic denial of maleness, male preferences, biological male differences. And I find this part very fascinating and it's been a hard line for walk in terms of. I know I have my, my very, I have my personal perspective which is rooted in biology. And.

Here'S what, I'll take this. I had Scott Galloway on the show, who I really, I really like a lot of what he says. I think he's, he's doing a great service in terms of bringing up a lot of stuff that young men are going through. He resonates with a lot of men. I've also had men like Richard Reeves, who is doing some amazing work now with the Institute for Boys and who I want to have back on the show. But in the interview with Scott, at one point he, he brought up that, that masculinity is just a social construct. And, and I was like, well, hold on, hold, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like back up the train. Like, how do you separate the biological underpinnings of our male bodies from our expression of our maleness, which happens to be our masculinity. Right. And so for me, it's a, it's a both end situation. But our culture has become so polarized that to say that, yes, society and social norms will influence your expression of your masculinity and, you know, how you were raised and, etc can certainly play a role in that. But also that your biological makeup, you know, if you have zero testosterone versus if you have, you know, a thousand, I don't remember the exact measurement, like milli deciliters per milli deciliters or whatever it is you are going to you're going to have to grapple a little differently with how you express yourself, you know, and so why is it that from your perspective, why do you think that there's this kind of.

Maybe we can call it dismantling of maleness? I'm sure that that probably comes along with the patriarchy conversation, but why do you think that there's sort of this negation of the biological underpinnings of what makes up a man and what makes up a woman?

Yeah, I mean, it's really just so inaccurate. I mean, what, you know, people sometimes say to me, is it biology or is it, you know, socialization? And I say, yes, wait a minute, that's not. What do you mean by that? And I say, it's about 80% biology and about 80% socialization. And they go, wait a minute, your math is really bad. And I go, it's because it's interactive. You know, your, your testosterone affects, is, has, affects your dopamine, affects your desire. When you look at a beautiful woman, you see you, you have feelings that beautiful women don't have to nearly the same degree about wanting sex with, with a man. And you know, I'm wearing a belt now, and that belt is the belt of a buck elk.

Horns. And in among buck elks, the alpha female, I'm sorry, the female seeks out for reproduction the alpha male and the, and the alpha male, in order. And the alpha male is the male with the biggest, longest rack. And so, but to get that biggest, longest rack, you have to exhaust 30% of your nutrient, nutrients, minerals and calcium. And if you don't immediately after having sex, if you don't immediately get rid of that rack, you have a very good chance as the buck elk of dying from malnutrition if the, if that, if you don't replenish that nutrition deficiency before the winter sets in. And so the theme behind all that is that men's weakness is our facade of strength.

That we build up this facade because why? Because we get love. Then women are attracted to men who are successful. And when it comes down to marrying a man, it's very rare that a woman is desirous of marrying. She may live with, have sex with, but very rare that a woman is desirous of marrying a short man that's living in his family's basement, unemployed, but a real sweetheart of a man. No way. You know, she may, if he's tall and good looking, she'll have sex with him, but not get married to him until she is feeling that maybe he's got, you know, maybe he's not earning enough money at the time, but he's, you know, he's starting a big business that she is faith in or is becoming a lawyer. Just has to pass the bar and you know that type of thing. It is very rare for women to marry a man who they believe will always earn less money than she. It is very rare to, for a woman to marry a man who says, you know, you're, you're very ambitious. Let's you and I get married because you can earn the money and I can take care of the children full time. I won't earn much money but you know, I'll just do a reversal of roles with you or.

You'Re a really nice guy but is what he normally gets. Now a really wise woman who really wants to go, who wants to be a have it all woman. By have it all woman I mean have a very successful career, have a happy marriage and have children that are brought up well would seek out a man exactly like that one that would choose to be very happy to raise the children while she raised money. And they reverse roles. And the chances are fairly good that most women, even very ambitious women will come home for the recitals for the, you know, for the special occasions and take time out for that. The children would. Children raised predominantly by men, especially in situations like that do very well, both girls and boys, especially the boys. And so it's a win win situation for the, for the mother and for the father. But what has the one thing that has to happen that often doesn't happen in situations like that starts with the word respect. Very often a woman at that, you know, a party will see some man that is really doing very well at a young age and start to begin to feel attracted to him and then look at him compared to the husband at home who isn't earning much of anything. And that's a pull for her. So if she doesn't have respect for the. This man who's at home parenting full time, she, that respect without. It's almost impossible for a woman to love a man she doesn't respect. And almost every woman will agree with that. And so, and men who are not respected, they feel it, they feel it intuitively. And so that's, that's the big challenge. And so this is, this is against our biology but it is very functional. And so the things. Because if, you know, if we really want to have women sharing top level positions in society as often as they do and feeling that they have had the experience of Having children, this is a way to go that very few people consider. And that's a combination because.

We'Re really working against our natural biology. If it was, you know, what I'm talking about makes intellectual common sense. And some people can do it, but it doesn't come nearly as easily as a, a man earning significant money and the woman being home full time or doing some combination of being full time with the children and full time with the workplace, like working part time. And so to, to say that social, it's all socialization is. I'm a, you know, there's very few things that I feel are right or wrong, but that's just plain wrong.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I think, you know, there's this.

I think evolutionary psychology has, has taken the sort of front and center in a lot of conversations around dating and relationships in the last few years, especially on the Internet. And it's a kind of like love, hate relationship that a lot of people have with it because people can see that there's validity to a lot of it. Right. Like what you're describing is that most women want to date up into the right. They want to date men who are of equal or greater status to them or at the very least have the.

Have the skills, have the possibility of, of doing those things. Right. Of being able to procure, you know, wealth and, and status and etc. So it, it's fascinating to me because that seems to be taboo in our culture.

Right.

It's like you can't say the thing anymore. You can't say that that is what most women. And you can't say every single woman, but for the, for the majority of women, that's what they want. And what I find fascinating is, you know, my, my wife has a lot of very successful, you know, women in her life, and they all say the same thing, that that's what they're looking for.

Yeah.

And it doesn't, doesn't matter how successful they are. It doesn't matter how much they've achieved or accomplished or how much social status and CL they have, how big their Instagram profiles are, how successful they are, and wherever they still are wanting a man who is up and to the right.

Yes.

And so, but, but there seems to be this battle also going on within culture that says there's no biological difference between men and women. And that's kind of, that, that's always been a little bit perplexing for me personally, you know, and where I've kind of landed on it, I'M curious to get your take is that there's this. It's not just like a gender war that's going on. There's. There's this power battle that seems to be happening between men and women as society and culture has evolved, you know, and we're in this sort of very liberal experiment that's kind of playing out and happening where objective reality is something that some people really believe in and some people just genuinely don't. And there seems to be this movement where a whole group of people have put subjective reality. Right? This is how I feel above any type of objective reality. Truth. Right? This is what we can all objectively see. This is what we can all objectively verify.

And, and so I think that that plays a big role in. In it, in the sense that there's kind of this battle between objective reality and subjective reality going on.

Right?

How do I feel about something, how do I view it versus. This is what I can observe. This is what I can observe. Right? This is what we can all see. So I'm curious to get your take on that. And, and if there's. I mean, obviously there's other pieces that play into it. But, but one, what's your take on that? And then two, how do men, or how can men operate in the face of some of this? Because I think the predilection is to, like, go to war, right? Is like, yeah, I, I won't go down that rabbit hole too, too much. But the, the predilection seems to be for a lot of men to, like, go to war on, you know, the, the feminists or the, the people that believe this type of rhetoric. So what's your thoughts on all that?

Well, two things. One is just thinking about this for a moment. If men and women were pretty much the same, then we maybe would test this out by having half of our NFL football teams have 50 women and 50 men, and the other half have all males. And then maybe, or maybe a third, a third, a third, and the other third be all females and then see who would win the championships. You know, it's just common sense. Tennis, rather than having.

Females play tennis and males play tennis, they'd all play tennis in equal numbers. Or we would just have one tennis league and whoever, you know, worked their way to the top, we would do that. You know, and so there's. And then that would show that we're really equal. If there were equal numbers of women as the top football players or the top tennis players or the top swimmers or the top boxers, that so if you can't see the, you know, the ridiculousness of that possibility, you know, that, that, you know, I have nothing more to say to you. It's like, it's like so obvious that it almost doesn't need saying, but it's amazing that it needs saying. So the next thing that's far more valuable, I think for every person listening to understand is what I call in the the Role Mate to Soulmate book. The.

This, this success love tension that the qualities it takes to be successful at work are in tension with almost the opposite of the qualities it takes to be successful in love. And that is really important. I'll explain that more in a sec. But that's really important for every man and every woman to understand because if a woman or a man becomes successful at work and let's say they're a top executive at Boeing and they're looking for a better door supplier.

And so.

They'Re good reference, good reference.

There are 40 people competing with to supply a better door for Boeing. And the and so as you're the CEO listening to these 15 different competitive salespeople, your job as a CEO is to beginning as the person is talking to say to yourself some version of okay, is this, what type of reputation does this person have? I vetted this person. Well, how does this proposal for the door, for a better door fit into the infrastructure that we already have? What about the infrastructure in Japan? What about the infrastructure that we've, among the people we've let go, who do we need to keep a hold of? You know, and, and lots of questions like that. So what you're doing to be a successful CEO is you're learning to master the art of self listening. Listening to yourself create questions, objections, yes buts while the other person is talking, even as you're absorbing a fair amount of what the other person is saying.

Now so to do that, that's a positive thing. If you're a lawyer, you're doing the same type of thing. You're listening to the opposing attorney and you're figuring out in your mind's eye what's the weak argument or how can I distort that argument to make it seem weaker than it is and then come in with my, with my retaliation. And if you don't do that, you haven't represented your client well. But if you do that, you've represented your client well and you've also learned to be a professional self listener and distort. And so now take that successful lawyer, that successful CEO and bring her or him home and they listen and their spouse says, how's your day at work, sweetie? Oh, it's been really challenging. You know, I had this problem with this client. It's the same problem I've had before. Well, sweetie, why don't you just give up that client? So you're moving into problem solving mode or you're moving into self listening. What can I suggest? Particularly if you're a male, but also if you're a female and you're in that CEO problem solving category. Instead of listening to the person that you love and just letting them talk it through and vent it and really holding on to what their complaint is. And not for not self listening, not forming in your own mind's eye solutions you can, you can, you can give, you are then a bad spouse because you are, you are planning solutions or planning criticisms or planning advice while the other person is talking. And if you do this with your children, the same type of thing, you know, when you're, when your children are complaining, just like your wife or husband, the first thing that it's important to do is to listen. Now this problem is.

Just universal, ubiquitous among successful women and men. However, it is even more challenging for men men because men have a protector instinct toward women. Which is why, you know, we, when women and children are killed, that's mentioned in the New York Times and it's, you know, how many men are killed are often skipped over that type of thing. So we have a protector instinct. And when, when a woman that we love is hurt or a child is hurting, our natural instinct is to go is to solve that problem is to put a band. It's like, it's like our partner is bleeding and how dare you even think of letting our partner bleed without putting a band aid on it. So women, when you feel sort of like a man solving your problem because you've mentioned that you have a problem, this is because he has been programmed to not to be in great pain if you bleed. His job, his innate job is to. To the way if he loves you and he means he loves you, he'd give up his life for you and certainly put a band aid on you. And that is solve your problem rather than let you suffer with that problem. That is not what I advise men to do. It's not what I advise anyone to do. The best when I work with CEOs or lawyers in particular at other top level people, male and female, what I reframe what solving the problem is that solving problem is listening to the problem being expressed and solving the problem is not solving the problem. And when your wife or your husband asks you for solutions, just say, well, what do you think are some solutions? And then after you've created your own solutions, then.

Maybe you can add something.

I can remember hearing somebody say, I have no idea where this quote is attributed, so I'm sure the Internet will, will pick this up for me. But something along the lines of if you don't have the answer to a problem, it's because you don't understand the problem properly. And it's this notion that the more that we can go into a problem, the more clear an answer makes itself. And so, yeah, I love what you're saying there. Why do you think it is just coming back on some of the things that you mentioned before, why do you think it is that, that we're seeing this gender divide in politics that more and more, especially young men are going to the right, the conservative side and more and more young women are going to the left, to the liberal side?

First of all, that is accurate. We are seeing exactly that. And also, historically speaking, we haven't seen that men and women who chose to marry each other or be long term partners almost always had very similar political views. Views. And you know, long time ago it was just the man's political view that counted, but now it's, you know, it's obviously both sexist political views that count, fortunately. And so the, so what's happened, what's been happening recently is the things that I was mentioning when we first started talking about men feeling that they've been told masculinity is toxic, that, that they're part of the patriarchy, that they're. The future is female. You know, that if a man explains what his problem, if he, if he doesn't share his feelings, he's, he' he's repressed and that's a problem. But if he shares his feelings, he's mansplaining. If he reaches out too quickly to a woman, he's a sexual harasser. If it's not quick enough, he's a wimp. Men are feeling like if DEI doesn't include him, all the things that I mentioned before, these all create anger in men.

And nobody understands that anger is vulnerability's mask. And so the way anger is met is to be angry at people who are angry as opposed to understand that they are vulnerable and to have empathy for the vulnerability beneath that anger, hidden by that anger. And so the, so this by not being expressed is leaving so many men just with nobody seeing their vulnerability, angry and the one person in the world who expresses anger really very well is President Trump, who is a potential leader. And so they're hearing his, you know, he doesn't let anything stop him, and he's, you know, just. And, you know, and this. And he's not caught up in DEI and feminism and, you know, and creating councils for just women and girls and. And women. So he may not say much of anything about it, but he sure doesn't. He doesn't cater to women and to feminism in the same way that the Democratic Party is. So they're moving to the right because it's the only place that they. That is expressing the anger in a way that they are identifying with and also not sort of making. Turning you into having to feel that the world is about women good, men bad, all the domestic violence that happens from men to women, even though it's about 50, 50, but no feminist will tell you that. And so a lot is not clear for the men. They just know. It's almost more like, I can't stand that the Democratic Party is against me and all for women as much as it is for.

An admiration for Trump. Trump, although there is a certain amount of admiration for him because he is so absolutely certain, or appears to be absolutely certain about what he says. And there's sort of a. An outlet in that. But it's definitely true that this. And this is creating a lot of problems, not only in husband and wife or, you know, male, female partnerships, but it's also creating problems in families that, you know, that you go to. You go to for Thanksgiving, and you're hoping to be, you know, why do you visit your family at Thanksgiving? Your aspiration is for a deeper love. But then somebody says, you know, oh, man, I'm supporting Trump. And somebody else says, oh, my God, how could you even think about that? And, you know, and so suddenly, there is. There's a feeling of, this person has bad values. How could I even love this person? How can I even be part of this person's family? And nobody teaches you how to do what I hope I teach in the Role Mate to Soulmate course, which is how to listen to people with totally different perspectives without becoming defensive, and how to allow them to feel heard and seen in the way that they feel heard and seen. While I teach this largely to couples about everyday life, I also teach couples in something that I call from civil war to civil dialogue, helping them do this with people in their family that they disagree with politically.

Yeah, it's. It's interesting because I Do think that if I. And I've said this before, like, I think if I was a young man in today's culture, I get why so many of them are moving to the right. And I think in. In many ways, there's a lack of belonging and welcoming shaming on the left in the cultural conversation today for young men and for masculinity in general, because it's the villain. You know, I did a. I did a video recently about man shaming and what I've called the patriarchy virus. The patriarchy virus is this notion that sort of infects the rhetoric of men are bad, men are the problem, and anything socially or culturally that is wrong in our society, it's because of men. And I think that for a lot of guys, when they look at the left, that. And I'm very moderate, right? So I'm. I was very liberal growing up. I went to, you know, college for a music degree. I was like, in the most liberal space as possible, the most progressive spaces possible.

Where did you go to college?

In Canada, in British Columbia. And so, you know, I got a degree in music. I was an opera singer. And those are some of the most, like, progressive liberal spaces that you could possibly be in. You know, I was. I was definitely the minority being a straight white guy. You know, it's like I was 100% straight. Yeah, exactly. Right. It was just like a. It was a very strange. Very strange thing. But I understand this feeling that I think a lot of men have when they look at the liberal conversation and see a lot of the narrative pointing towards you're the problem. Right? You're the issue, specifically you white men. And so I think a lot of guys, you know, and I've talked about this as well, like, psychologically, shame is. It can be something that you deploy to try and behavioral correct people, but it never has the lasting effect that you want because it will always create resentment, resentment and animosity. And I think that's a big part of what's happened here, is that there's just resentment and animosity that's continued to build, you know, between men and women socially, and it's reached this kind of tipping point, you know, and so. Excuse me. So I get why a lot of men are. Why a lot of young men are leaving the. The progressive side because there's this sort of narrative of. Of you're not welcome here or wanted here, or if you are welcome or wanted here. You have to operate in the way that we tell you to. This is how you have to be a man. And I think for a lot of guys that, you know, have studied masculinity or read myths about being a man or, you know, anything that has to do with masculinity, it's like, well, that's not necessarily how that works. You know, it's kind of anti male to be told how to be male, you know, or anti masculine. Like, okay, this, you're telling me exactly how I need to operate. Great.

Got it.

So I, I get the disenfranchisement and I also get that, you know, women were.

Women were disenfranchised for a long time, right? They didn't have voting opportunities or rights. I mean, we just go down the list. And so I think it's just very interesting time where almost like in a marriage, you know, where things have not been talked about for a decade or two and all of a sudden they show up at couples therapy and they're both talking just livid at each other and all the stuff starts to come to the surface. We're kind of in the finger pointing phase culturally right now, right? It's like men are the problem. It's the patriarchy. And, you know, the guys on the other side is like, feminism's the problem. It's, you know, it's all these, you know, wild, crazy feminists. And so that seems to be the space that we're in. And so where, where I want to land now that my sort of pseudo rant is done is what would you be saying to men who are in their 20s, who are in their 30s, like, what would you be doing or trying to focus on now? Knowing that a lot of men are in this commentary that's telling them women are the problem. Feminism has destroyed women. There's no good women out there. You know, porn is this massive distraction. How would you be operating if you were 20 or 30 today? And what would you be trying to focus in on or do or accomplish?

Yes, well, all right, let me give a little bit of my background first and then move into today's translation. As you probably know, or that I started out like you did. I was in the board of directors of the National Organization for Women in New York City. And I spoke all around the world on women's issues. I suppose I was the leading world's leading male feminist. And.

My income, my applause, my accolades were all based on supporting everything that feminism said. And one day when I was on the board in New York City.

The National Organization for Women was, was considering not allowing men in to join the organization and their main reason was because every once a month they had consciousness raising groups. And during these consciousness raising groups, women felt inhibited to really speak up their mind when there were men in the group who would often try times try to solve their problem and stuff like that, which just left them feeling just much more restricted. And. And I totally understood that. And so they ended up solving the debate by saying that they would give this guy Warren Farrell, six months to form some men's groups during the same time that the women were doing the women's consciousness raising groups. And so. And if that worked to get the men out of the woman's hair, so to speak, then. And then that would be something that they would allow them to keep men in.

To be able to join now. So I did this and you know, being that I was doing my doctoral dissertation on the women's movement and I was sort of, you know, had this role in. Now oftentimes I would listen to the men for a little while and then sort of give them a lecture as to how to be a better feminist. And have to remember that every man that I was talking with was at the National Organization for Women meeting. Exactly. Because was. He was feminist in his orientation. So we were sort of, in a way, all competing to be the biggest jock in the feminist men's group. And the. And so I would. But then one day I decided to do something miraculous, to shut my mouth and listen instead of just, you know, giving advice. And when I did that, I started to ask questions like, you know, you know, what's the biggest hole in your heart? What is the, you know, what. What are the things that you would have loved to have done that you haven't done? And I saw a number of men and a number of the men's groups that I formed tell me things like, well, the biggest hole in my heart was I wanted to be a musician or I. Or an actor or a. Or a writer, like. And. And, you know, and. Or I wanted to be an artist or I wanted to be an elementary school teacher or I was an elementary school teacher, teacher. And then when my kids. I had my first child, I had to give up being an elementary school teacher because I wasn't making enough money. So I had to become. I figure out a way of going for a master's degree in administration, becoming a principal. Well, Warren, I hate, you know, I hate being administration stuff. It's just so. And then they give me a big rant as to why they hate it, but pretty much everybody understands why. And then, so they become maybe a superintendent of schools or a principal. But then the feminists looked at that and said, aha. Even in areas where women were in the majority, like teaching, it ends up being the men who are, you know, the. In the power positions. But the men were saying like, this was the only reason I gave up my job as an elementary school teacher or being a musician. And being what I wanted to do was because I wasn't making enough money as a musician, artist, or a writer. Writer or as an elementary school teacher. So when our first child came along, I realized I had to do something that earned more money that would allow my wife to cut back on. On her work enough to be able to take care of the children to. To the degree that she wanted to, whether that was full time, part time, or some combination of both. And so I did something that I hate doing or. Or at least I gave up my passion because the more high paying, the more fulfilling the occupation. The more people want to do it. The more people want to do it, the greater the supply in relation to the demand, therefore, the less it pays. And so I took something that paid more.

So that my children could have opportunities that I never had, so my wife and I and the family could move to a decent neighborhood with a decent school system, so that could create more opportunities. And so I suddenly. And then I realized that I had been assistant to the president of New York University and was considering becoming the president of university. But the head of the Modern Language association was telling me I had a gift for writing. And so I really wanted to write. But I was thinking that, you know, being a president of university would be more stable. And I also was caught up in believing that I had to give up, you know, if I had children, would have to give up doing what I really wanted to do, to do what I really needed to do. And the challenge. At once I saw the picture of how many men who were creative men were giving up doing what they wanted to do, to do more that. To do what they would benefit the family more is that these men did. Were willing to do that, that. But they didn't want to be told that they were doing that because they had male privilege, that they wanted to be under, they wanted to be acknowledged for giving up a life of doing what they wanted to do to be able to make life better for their children and for their wife. And this was. This is in essence what has not been acknowledged to this day. Day from. And this was, you know, this is back in the late 1960s, early 70s, even though I'm only 45 years old. The, the. And so we. Yeah, so. And this has, this unfortunately has not only not changed, but, but in progressive universities which call them by themselves progressive, which is by itself self righteous term, term that suggests that anyone that doesn't agree with. Agree with us is not progressive but regressive. And the right is no better. They call themselves patriotic. But any which suggests that anybody that doesn't agree with us is not patriotic. And they both, you know, both the left and the right have these self righteous terms to make that make people believe that if you don't agree with them, you're either unpatriotic or you're not progressive. And so, but no one is articulating these things for our sons. And no one is teaching people how to communicate in the area that is most important that almost every couple that I've worked with for the past 30 years in my Role Mate to Soulmate workshops, almost every couple says the same thing, that I feel like I'm walking on eggshells to bring up something to my spouse. Having to wait for the right time, the right moment, the right tone to do it. Because I fear that if I say what I really feel, they'll just respond defensively. We'll get into, I'll respond defensively to them and we'll get into a huge argument. And so I've, you know, developed these things called caring and sharing spaces where couples learn how to alter their natural biological propensity to be defensive for just an hour or so in order to be able to leave their partner feeling seen and heard in the way that they, their partner would express what's going on inside of them.

I think that that adds a good sort of segue into the book Role Mate to Soulmate. So one of the things that I thought was interesting where I kind of wanted to begin on this side was the book kind of suggests that falling in love is very biologically natural, but then sustaining love almost seems like it's biologically counterintuitive or unnatural. So can you kind of elaborate a little bit on what makes this, this shift from falling in love to maintaining or sustaining love so, so challenging for couples to navigate.

You know, biologically speaking and historically speaking, when you.

When, when you first met each other, you felt this, you often feel this energy of attraction if you are, you know, highly attracted to that person. And so, so you feel this enormous passion and you have your first lovemaking experience and you feel like you're a soulmate, but of course you're not A soulmate with somebody you barely know, that you just, you're an attraction mate or a chemistry mate, if you will. And so, but as the real life relationship, you know, starts happening, there are things that you find that you're, you know, you would like your partner to do differently. So, and then your partner, even though maybe it's a request to do something differently, and you would say it's a sharing of, a concern, your partner often experiences that, you know, request to maybe not put the dishes in the sink rather than the dishwasher as a criticism. And so then your partner says something like, well, you often leave the, you know, dishes in the dish in the sink. I don't say anything about it. Why is it okay for you and not me? And then bang, bang, bang, we're all up. You know, we're up, we're off into escalation mode. And so what is this all about? What this is about is that historically speaking, when you heard criticism, it was a potential enemy. And it would, it made sense. It was functional for you to get up your defenses, otherwise you'd be killed by the enemy or even to kill the enemy before the enemy kills you. That was functional for survival. And we are all the children of people who behave that way and survived. But while it's functional for survival, being defensive when your loved one has something to say is totally dysfunctional for love. So the challenge that I had, and I don't write a book unless I feel that there's a problem that is pretty universal in the world. And, and I feel that I might have a chance of having a solution that hasn't been come up with before. And so 99% of the time I'm not the person to do it and I don't have a good solution. But in this case, I felt like I could put my fingers on a solution to this. And.

So it's a complex series of things, but one of those things is creating a caring and sharing practice practice. And so I said to myself, if it's biologically natural to be defensive in response to a criticism, then we have to alter our natural biological state. And so I have be. So I have couples set aside two hours a week, which I call a caring and sharing practice. The first thing that they do is to learn how to appreciate each other at five levels of specificity at the beginning of the practice and then again at the end of the practice. So that when they go into this two hour practice, they know that the great, a significant part of the time is going to be spent being appreciated by their partner, which lowers the anxiety. The second thing is, but before they're only allowed to have each person is allowed to share only one concern and the person sharing it will consider it a concern, usually not a criticism. The person hearing it will consider it a criteria criticism, not a concern. And so but before they hear that concern, the they meditate into a series of six mindsets. These six mindsets are ones that after 30 years of doing the role mate to Soulmate workshop, I found that those six mindsets were ones that were really allowing people to.

Change their biologically natural response from defensiveness to understanding that if I hear what my partner is saying, I will be more deeply loved. So I'll give an example of one of the mindsets. One mindset is called the love guarantee. And so before they hear the criticism, they meditate into the mindset of saying if I provide a safe environment and make my partner feel very secure that no matter what she or he says, I will listen to it. Even if I feel it's completely exaggerated, even if I feel it's a lie, even if I feel it's an excuse, even if it's said in a loud sarcastic tone of voice, I will create a safe environment for that. And if I do create a safe environment for that that my partner will feel safe and secure with me, which means she'll feel he'll feel more loved by me, which means that he or she will feel more love for me. So they're beginning to associate the experience of hearing criticism as an act of love. I'll share one more mindset that it's really kind of entertaining. I have every couple on sit back to back and write on a piece of paper that they I am I tell them that their partner will never see so they can be completely honest. The answer to this question if your partner is in a situation where she or he is likely to be killed like let's drown or in a car accident and you know with 100% certainty that they're going to be killed but there's a chance that you could save their life life that you know in fact with 100 certainty that you could save their life but there'd be a 50% chance of risking losing your own life, would you do it? Yes. No, uncertain. And take children out of the equation. Make believe there's no children. And so about then everybody throws their papers into an area where other men and women women pick up same sex papers and read, read, read off the the answers. About 90% of men are Willing say yes. They're certain they would be willing to risk their life at a 50% level to save their partner's life. Remember that a number of people in the workshop are considering getting divorced. Despite that 90% of the men, a little bit more than 80% of the women say the same thing. And the. And so then the first mindset is, well, if I'm willing to die for you, I guess the least I can do is listen to you.

It puts it in perspective. And there's four other mindsets like this that after the person who is about to listen goes through, they realize, all right, if I'd be willing to die for you, I guess I could listen to you. The outcome of this is going to be, you're going to feel more loved by me. What's, you know. And then I teach them how to do this, how to attach to the, how to attach to the criticism and not detach or self listen and so on. And at the end of that process, they are really prepared to hear whatever their partner says in whatever way their partner says it. And then once they learn to do that, their experience is, I have almost always, I have never felt so heard by you in my life before. Even though I may have mentioned this issue a hundred times before, now is the first time I've really felt heard from you. So then the next big question becomes, well, what about the other 166 hours a week besides this? 2 hours for caring and sharing. And so I teach the couples then how to set up conflicts. Conflict free zones. This does not mean criticism free zones. You will do what you, your partner will do something that you consider a criticism very possibly at some point during the week. So what I first have them do is to visualize that I can either respond to this criticism right now and we'll probably get into an argument that will escalate and we'll both feel terrible. Or alternatively, I can visualize myself giving my response in the caring and sharing time and having about 100% chance of being heard and listened to by my partner and seen. Oh, okay, that's a pretty easy decision. But you may have such anger inside of you at the moment that doing that doesn't seem viable. So the next thing I ask people to do is to journal. Journal. And the first stage of journaling is to write, you know, rush to your computer and write down exactly why you're 100% right and your partner's 100% wrong. That's the first stage. That's what I call the self righteous Stage. And then stage two is, well, what's one good point that my partner is making? Stage three is what's a number of points that my partner's making? Number four, let me write this up as if it was my partner speaking. And then if it still survives as a problem where you feel you haven't had a chance to. To share what you want to share, then. Then it survives and you bring it up in the. In the caring and sharing practice. So those are two of the 23 what I call love enhancements that I ask people to do in the role mate to soulmate book. But I will tell you, this ain't easy, you know, because this is all biologically unnatural. And it doesn't, you know, if you think that you're going to read the book once and not practice it with your partner, you know, I'd love to say that's what's. That's. That will happen. But it's what you get from the book is what I hope is wisdom. But the truth is that when criticism appears, wisdom disappears. Unless your brain has trained yourself to hear that criticism in a way that associates it with being more deeply loved. Loved. And you've done that not just once, but 5, 10, 15 times so that your brain's neurons begin to connect. So that when I hear my wife is upset with me about something, I can really hear that I have the option of waiting for this caring and sharing time to be able to share my perspective on it.

I will say that one of the things that I really loved about the book is how. How practical and tactical it is, which I am a huge advocate for. It's how I wrote my book. I wanted to be. I wanted it to be as tactical and practical as possible. And so I love that you have stuff in there for couples to do. One of the things that also stood out to me is this concept, not concept. It's a very real experience that so many people have, which is just walking on eggshells around their partner. You know, I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't want to do the wrong thing. I mean, I hear men say this all the time of like, I just don't know if I'm going to say or do the wrong thing that's going to set her off or vice versa. And I think that's a very common state that couples can get into. What advice do you have for couples in terms of how to break this pattern so that connection can be maintained versus this disconnection of if I do X, Y and Z, then maybe you'll be in a good place. But if I do anything else, then you're going to bite my head off.

Yes. Yes. You really have to.

You really have to practice this and not as a. Not just read the book and. Well, it's one of the reasons why I've made practically free an online video course that I have produced that, that you and your partner can actually get the course and then take the stuff that's in the book and actually practice it with your partner watching me do it with two other couples and then pausing it to actually do the experiences that I ask people to do. There's about 15 experiences in the book that you and your partner will do. And then when you do, when you do that, one of the things that happens is when you first do that caring and sharing, you feel heard for the first time and you feel that you know how to hear your partner in a way that makes her feel more secure. Once you, you have to trust it enough to have that experience once. But once you have that experience, you then can. Then it's like a whole other world opens up to you. Like anything I'm walking on eggshells about, I have the option to be able to bring that up in this caring and sharing time. And I will watch and hear my partner prepare her himself by saying these mindsets out loud and telling me when she or he is ready to hear me without being feeling defensive. And she or he will stop and say hold the moment they lose it and return to their natural biological state of being defensive. And so when they say hold and I have to stop talking about what I'm doing, I know my partner is preparing himself or herself to center themselves again. And so once you've had that experience, then it's possible when you're criticized during the week to say, to be able to visualize, wait a minute. I have a way of really being able to do this. Now, having said that, you know, in my last workshop, I had two older men who I just could not get to do this. And when I spoke to both of them privately and actually in front of their new wives, and they said that when I was previously married, I tried to listen to my wife or I've tried to say to my wife certain things that bothered me and it alienated them. And there was no sex, there was no love, there was no connection. I just felt like the whole thing was a lose, lose, lose. And so I promised myself I would never do that again again. I would just keep my feelings to myself. And yes, I've had problems with alcoholism or, you know, I, you know, I play golf on Sunday to get away from it all and relax. But nevertheless, I'm not going to risk that loss of love again. And it's only when they have an experience where they see that their wife or actually listened to them and heard them being able to say what they wanted to say, really wanted to say, say that they felt like, wow, this actually can change from my past experience. But they have to take that little bit of a leap of faith. The thing that allows them to do it in the workshop is that they see 30 other couples doing it successfully and they often are then willing to take that risk.

Well, I feel like that is a good place for us to pause so much wisdom in this book. And for those that aren't watching, because we have you on video right now, which you got role mate to Soulmate in the background there, which I love. Definitely go check out Rolemate to Soulmate. You can get it wherever books are sold. I know I'm, I don't usually like, give a, a little recommendation and go and grab a copy, but I really enjoyed this and I got to dive into it and, and I, I do think that a lot of the tools that are in your book are, are going to support many, many people. So any final words for the folks that are out there listening who want to learn more about you or your work, where, where should they go?

You know, fortunately, Amazon does have a 30% sale on the book now and, and I do. As you'll see when you look at the book, really don't just read the book. It'll give you, as I said, wisdom that will disappear the first time you're criticized.

But, but actually do it with your partner in the, in the online course and you will real. I can then really guarantee that you'll have a way of communicating that won't just be good for you. It'll be good if you have children, for your children to see areas of, see two people that they love disagreeing and being able to come to a different, be able to hear each other. And you know, the only downside it will have to your children is once the children learn to listen like that, they'll be, be too popular. It may take away from their homework time.

But you know, as a, as a rule, all seriousness, it's, I think one of the greatest gifts you can give to the children to, to show, to teach them great methods of communication.

Beautiful. Couldn't. Couldn't agree more. Well, thank you so much for Joining me again, Dr. Farrell. This has been an honor and a privilege to just chat with you and drop in and hope to have you back on the show. Let's not wait. What is this? That six years? Let's not wait six years.

I'd love to work with you sooner. You ask. You're very thoughtful. You ask good questions. You're balanced, you listen really well. And so that's a combination that I appreciate in an interview, but I also love it in person.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, everybody that's out there. This is definitely an episode that you should tune into with a friend, a partner. So man it forward, share the episode with somebody that you, you know, will enjoy it. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.