HealthyGamerGG - Masculinity - Can It Be Healthy?

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Dr. K dives into masculinity, self-value, insecurities, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So what we're sort of noticing is that there are traditional masculine characteristics, which as society evolves, as technology evolves, some of those characteristics are no longer sort of necessary for men. So there's been a diffusion of responsibility. There's been a growth of independence of both genders. Dr. Kay, what is healthy masculinity? I think social media right now is being flooded with unhealthy masculinity. Specifically, YouTube, shorts, and TikTok. I would really like a video for young men that explains what healthy masculinity. masculinity is. Second, to that Dr. Kay's community, what do you think healthy masculinity looks like

slash is? So let's actually start with this. What do you all think constitutes healthy masculinity? What do you all think is healthy? So we have Assassin Lama 23 saying, I'd say read meditations of Marcus Aurelius to learn what healthy masculinity is. Okay. So one of the most famous Stoics being based, it's hard to explain. It's subjective, beating people up, deadlifting pizzas. Stoicism and chivalry Discipline strength and courage Strength and self-control Healthy ego being dependable

Being one with your emotions Bros supporting bros Stoicism Responsibility Protective and kind You know Be secure in your identity Being alpha and wrecking

Beatus Just being human T-Pose without fear Body health Courage strength Responsible Being a provider Bravely accepting weakness

Bring back chivalry Provision Responsibility Resilience Considerate leadership being pragmatic, leadership and composure, following your dreams, confidence, responsibility, high testosterone, all great, all great possibilities, right? Being top rank in League of Legends.

So I'm going to share some thoughts today about what I consider healthy masculinity. But before we even get into that, I think we need to understand historically what masculinity is and what's going on right now that has essentially caused somewhat of a crisis within masculinity. Let's start with like, and this is going to be. largely the sources of the information that I'm going to share are largely going to be my own kind of personal experience, anecdotal observations, and clinical experience. A lot of what I'm going to be sharing is not actually going to come from peer-reviewed studies. So that's kind of like a big disclaimer at the beginning. But I will share some really interesting data from here to support

a couple of points. But generally speaking, the thesis of this is based on Dr. Kay's experience, as opposed to, you know, like tons of well-established studies. So let's start with like, historically what masculinity was. And I sort of would break this down into masculinity traditionally was the three peas. So being a protector, being a provider, and being a patriarch. So if we look at anthropology in the study of like human civilization over time, what we tend to find is that most cultures were very, very tribal, right? So it's like a group of people. And because cultures were tribal and we had a bunch of people, we had a division of labor or maybe the other way around. The necessity of division of labor, like so there were hunting skills and then there's like, you know, turning milk into cheese and butter and things like that.

There was such a, there was so much labor intensity that humans basically had to ban together to be able to get everything done. And the human beings that were able to ban together to get everything done, the ones that were able to maintain, for example, dairy cows and farm land and go out hunting. those were the ones who essentially like performed the best, right? So there was an evolutionary advantage for a division of labor. And so things basically broke apart along gender lines. And whether that's sort of like scientifically a good idea or bad idea, I can't really comment on that. That's just sort of what we observe, right? And so what men were traditionally responsible for is protection. So even today, for example, in the United States military, if you're a man, you can get drafted. If you're a woman, you can't. I'm not trying to turn this into a discussion about men's rights versus women's rights or whatever.

saying that this is sort of a legacy of what historically has been a responsibility of men is to be protectors. So warriors, people who fought in battles, things like that have historically been men. The next thing is to be providers. So there's sort of this idea that especially if you go back 100 years ago, you know, there's sort of like there are these very traditional gender roles where like women sort of stay in the household and men go out and they earn. And so maybe about 100 years ago, you had a lot of households that were single income earners, okay? maybe 60 years ago, 70 years ago. And so that sort of worked back then.

So men have traditionally been providers. They used to go hunt. Then they would like earn money, right, once we moved to a money-based economy. And so that's sort of like a general idea, is like a man provides for their family. And this is where I love to share kind of an interesting experience I had as a clinician. So I was working in a jail and there was an 18-year-old kid there. And we were talking a little bit about how they ended up in jail and things like that. and he was in jail again for selling drugs.

And when I sort of talked to him a little bit about, like, you know, what's up with that? How did you get into selling drugs? Why do you sell drugs? What does it do for you? And his primary reason for selling drugs, at least as how he explained it to me, is that, well, like, I have two older sisters. And they've, like, told me ever since I was a young age that a man provides. And so, like, I have to provide for them. So, like, in the only way that I can kind of do that or the only way I can figure out how to do that is through selling drugs.

Now, I'm not saying, sharing this story is sort of an indictment of women and maybe his older sisters weren't the nicest people. Maybe he could have been lying. That could have been his perception. I'm not trying to make an overall comment on men good, men, women, women, women, bad. What I'm pointing out is that traditionally, what we've sort of seen is that men feel the responsibility to provide. Okay? Whether that's right or wrong, we'll get to that in second. The third thing is that men have traditionally been patriarchs. So what does that sort of mean? That means that in a lot of societies, the, the family unit is patriarchal, which means sort of the man makes decisions as head of the household, etc. I think some of those masculine ideals are more about being leaders, right? So like offering guidance and wisdom and things like that. And so these were sort of traditional gender roles as me as a lay person. I'm not saying these are factually accurate. This is just like I was trying to figure out when I saw this question, okay, like what did, when I grew up, what were sort of the ideals of manhood that I experienced and furthermore seem to be consistent with the other men that I worked with both clinically as well as like, you know, in my social life and things like that.

And this is sort of what I could come up with, right? So men are providers, they're protectors, and their patriarchs. And so what's happened over the last, let's say, 20 years, 50 years, 500 years, a thousand years. So the first big thing that's happened is that we've known we've become as human beings more independent. So we used to be like, you know, tribes that required a division of labor for everything to function. But as technology has improved, we've no longer needed to be quite as dependent on each other. So, you know, let's say 500 years ago, there may have been like one cooking pot for the whole village. And everyone goes out forages. We all get together. We make everything together and we sort of like spread the resources, share the wealth and whatnot. As technology improves,

we no longer need to do that, right? So I no longer need to milk my own cows. I no longer need to churn my own butter. I no longer need to bake my own bread. I can go to a grocery store, I can just get all those things. I have things like a stove, right? So I don't need to start a fire. I have an oven. I have this thing called a microwave. So I actually don't, like, you can completely subsist off of freezers and microwavable food. You know, you don't need any kind of specialized labor to be able to eat anymore. So what we're sort of seeing is that as human beings become more independent, they're becoming less communal. And as we become less communal, some of those traditional gender roles or like kind of labor divisions across the

community, the family unit, whatever, have sort of become less important because we don't really need to do those things anymore. And things have become so independent, right? So, and then 50, 60 years ago, we had a lot of gender equality. There have been historically gender equality throughout, you know, the majority of human history. And so as we're sort of moving more towards equality between all people, we're sort of seeing a systemic shift in terms of what men are doing, in terms of what women are doing. And I think generally speaking, that's really, really good. Right. So as we're sort of getting equality between the genders, what's sort of almost happening is there's a crisis of gender roles. So even if you look at, and this isn't just for masculinity, there's a lot of change and morphing in terms of what it means to be a woman.

So for a while, what it meant to be a woman was to be a homemaker. And that's what we defined as femininity. And then what happened is like people, women became more independent. We sort of changed the way we sort of conceptualized femininity. I'm not saying that femininity is perfect by any means. I'm not saying that there aren't talking. variants of that as well. But there's been sort of like a revival of what it means to be a woman. And so then at this point, I think actually it's in a pretty good place where I'm sort of happy that we live in a society where for the most part, a woman, I'd hope this is true. If this isn't true, please educate me. But this is what I think would be a wonderful target is that, you know, a woman can essentially decide like, okay, if I want to be a homemaker, that's just as laudable as having a career. And that it's not like we're valuing one over the other.

Now, I think what's kind of interesting is as we have this kind of equality that's growing, as we're seeing more independence, we're starting to see certain challenges for people who hold traditional masculine roles. So the first thing that's happening, I think this is purely economic, is that the number of single income households is decreasing. So this is like, it's a huge problem because now essentially if you want to survive, many people have to be dual income households because you just can't support a family. you can't buy a house, go on vacation, and raise two kids with a single salary. Now, why this could be affecting men disproportionately is because I think that if you actually look at research, and this is where we're going to cite a particular and interesting study, is that men, I don't think, even though it's harder to be a solo provider as a man, I don't think that societal attitudes have kept up with the changes in equality.

So what I mean by that is that as things have become more equal, I think we haven't started to judge men in the same way. So we sort of linger with older judgments towards men, even though men are trying to exist in a society where what the responsibilities of a man are are no longer as capable to be able to be done, if that sort of makes sense. Maybe a simpler way to put that is we still expect men

to be men in a society where it's becoming increasingly difficult to do so, i.e. being a single income earner. A good example of this is actually if you kind of look at attitudes towards dating and dating men in terms of like what people prefer. So the really interesting thing is that 80% of people will say that a man should be able to provide for the household. Now before we start like bashing women, oh my God, like women, women, this is society as a whole. So the other really interesting thing to understand about damaging gender attitudes, and this is true, I think, of both men and women, is that a lot of the damaging attitudes towards men or women are actually perpetrated by men and women. So I've also another piece of anecdotal experience. I've done some work in finance.

And the really interesting thing is that I've worked with a lot of women in finance. And women in finance are treated very, very harshly for getting pregnant. So there's almost this unspoken rule, which thankfully is changing. And this could be a slice of my experience. But if you're a woman in finance, I'd be really surprised to hear that you don't know what I'm talking about. But essentially, like, what women are told is that, like, you can't have a kid until you get to a certain level professionally. Like, the earliest you could potentially have a kid is 32. And the really fascinating thing is that this kind of feedback about when women can have

children does not usually come for men. It actually usually comes from women, at least in terms of my experience of working with women in finance. So this is what happens. Like, you join an investment bank or a private equity firm. It's 80% men and 20% women. So the powers that be decide, right? Oh, like, here's a woman.

So let's do this. Let's set up a mentor who is the other woman in our company. And so we oftentimes see very like intentional mentor-mente relationships created between women in finance. And then what happens is that your mentor, who's like in their mid-40s, takes you out to lunch and says, oh, by the way, like, you know, they'll sort of have these kinds of conversations and they'll say, hey, you know, it's really not a good idea. You'd be destroying your career if you decided to have a baby at the age of 25 or 26. I had to wait until I had my first kid at 36.

And since I had to do it, you have to do it too. And so it's kind of interesting because what we're starting to see. is that like a lot of these attitudes that are actually perpetrated are actually perpetrated by the gender themselves. And this isn't about sort of men versus women. And especially if you look at the idea of being financially independent, men feel that way just as strongly as women do. Now, in terms of dating preferences, we also tend to see that while that most people really expect men to be able to like run a household. And that's where, you know, if you're, if you take issue with that, I would encourage you to sort of think about.

that for a little bit, right? So if you're a man and you take issue with that, think a little bit about how okay are you? Could you feel healthy about yourself? Could you be proud of yourself if you were a stay-at-home dad? Or do you feel like some amount of your value as a human being? Your value as a man comes from being financially independent and being able to take care of a household? If you're a woman and you say, oh, that's really unfair, you know, that's not an issue. We're not like that, so we can't generalize all women, first of all. And the second thing is, I would encourage you to look around, not only in terms of your own relationships, but if you are in a committed long-term relationship, you know, what is the, how much money does your partner earn, assuming

they're a man, and also look around at your social circle and look at what are, you know, in terms of like who your female friends have decided to date, how much, how many of them are, as we put at deadbeat men versus men who have careers and make money and things like that. So I encourage you all to just like look at this, right? We're not saying that something is necessarily good or bad, we're just trying to understand the historical perspective of how we got here. So I think part of what we're sort of seeing, and this is what leads to a crisis of masculinity, is that men are, we're expecting particular things for men. It's becoming harder and harder for men to fulfill those things. And then what happens is we have this overcompensation in other

masculine characteristics. So since I can't support a household just by my solo income, which is probably due to inflation more than anything else. Then what's going to happen is I have to like my masculinity leans into other aspects, right? So we'll have like these very, very like overt masculine forms because we can't like check some of the boxes. I don't know how to be a patriarch. I can't be a provider. So like I'm going to lean into being a protector.

Right. So you'll see a lot of like very kind of like aggressive aggressiveness amongst men. And what I've sort of noticed is that the hypertrophy of masculine characteristics, whether it's hypersexuality, you know, dominance kind of language, like even in terms of appearance, the more hypertrophic of particular masculine characteristics there are, I've seen an overwhelming amount of insecurity about other masculine characteristics. And so it's like the more macho of a man I become, that relates to my insecurity in other dimensions.

I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to provide. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to be a patriarch. I don't know if I can be a protector. And so almost to compensate for that, what I tend to do is inflate other aspects of masculinity. And this is where I think a lot of men are struggling because there are other kinds of systemic issues at play. So, for example, about one out of four households is a single-parent household. About 80% of single-parent households, at least in the United States, are women. And so what we're also sort of seeing is as we've seen, by the way, the trend is increasing in terms of single-parent households.

I think in 2007, it was maybe 12%. In 2017, it was maybe 16%. So it's kind of going up in terms of like the number of single parent households. And so what we're sort of seeing, I think, is also a lack of healthy role models for men, right? So as we're sort of seeing more and more men not having healthy male role models who can teach them what healthy masculinity is, and we'll get to that in a second, what we sort of end up with is people who are trying to figure it out on their own. And as we start trying to figure it out on their own, what we end up with is some adaptations that end up being maladaptations. So a good example of this is like independence. So one of the, you know,

the male virtues, and we'll get to how most of these virtues are not really male towards the end, one of the male virtues is to be independent, right? I should be able to take care of myself. And so I think that part of what happens over time is as we kind of lean into this, I need to be independent, I need to be independent. I need to be independent. What this sort of turns into as a maladaptation is like being closed off from other people. So what we tend to see is that men are conditioned to only feel anger. So that's the only socially acceptable feeling. So I remember, for example, when my dad passed away, like if I started crying, like men would walk up to me and they'd say, like, be strong. And I interpreted that. No one told me what that meant. They didn't, what they didn't

explicitly say, stop crying. They just said, be strong. Now is the time for you to be strong. I didn't know what that meant. I still don't know what that means. Right. What does it mean to be strong? But the way that I interpreted that is to not display negative emotion. And even when I remember kind of growing up, like, it's okay to get angry at stuff, right? It's okay to feel frustrated. it's not okay to be ashamed, it's not okay to be afraid, it's not okay to be worried, right? Like those are the kinds of feelings that we're sort of not conditioned to feel. And so as we sort of rely on independence, what we end up doing is we sort of like adapt to that, right? So I'm told I need to be independent.

And if I'm told I need to be independent, how do I do that? I end up numbing myself. I end up being out of touch with my emotions. I end up not leaning on other people for emotional support, right? Because that's like independent. it's not manly to start crying, you know, put your head on someone's shoulder and cry. Like that's not manly at all. And so we have some of these perceptions of what masculinity is and we try to adapt to them, right? So we try to lean into this ideal of independence. And as a result, we end up actually creating a maladaptation, which is sort of emotional like numbness and emotional withdrawal from other people. And so this is essentially what I think is going on with masculinity right now, that there have been traditional masculine gender roles. And some of those gender roles. And some of those gender, roles have been hard to achieve for men as society has changed. The other tricky thing is that I think

that society's expectations of men have not kept pace with what is actually possible for men. So, for example, as, you know, more and more women enter the workforce, the idea that a man may not be able to provide hasn't really kept pace. And when I say that, once again, that's not an indictment of women, because remember that these are societal expectations and men themselves feel this way as well. So this is where like if you're a stay-at-home dad, you're much more likely to be judged by other men than you are to be judged by women. Actually, I don't know if that's a statement is statistically true, but I would imagine so, right? So there's just an assumption. Like when I'm meeting other dads at the playground, there's an assumption that all of us have jobs. So they'll

just ask me, like the second question, what kind of work do you do? There's an assumption. Whereas if you meet moms at the playground, there isn't an assumption that they work. So a lot of these attitudes or sort of legacies, society hasn't really kept pace with what it's like to actually be a man. And we tend to be judged unfairly, in my opinion, for that. Once again, just because men are judged unfairly doesn't mean that women aren't judged unfairly, too. We're just going to sort of focus on this question, which is what is healthy masculinity? And so let's get to that. So what would I consider healthy masculinity?

So I tend to think about healthy masculinity as embodying two major traits. One is to be independent and one is to be responsible. This is where we've got to be careful because independence doesn't necessarily mean not having connections with other people. So let's talk a little bit about what I mean by independent. So at the top of the list is hygiene. So this means that a man, in my opinion, should be able to groom themselves and be cleaned. Also have a place that is hygienic. So to be able to do your own laundry, keep your place clean, not have, you know, have a clean toilet, have a clean bathroom, have clean laundry, be able to clean the kitchen.

it means to be able to do all of those things, to have a clean life and a clean living space. And this is where there are some, you know, gender attitudes that still persist, that men aren't supposed to clean and women, cleaning is women's work. So in my opinion, a man should be independent

and shouldn't have to rely on anyone to clean their house. So men should also be, in that way, self-sufficient, right? So you should be able to cook for yourself. You should be able to, like, do things around the house if you need to. It's okay to have some division of labor if you have, if you're in a committed relationship. but if you're asking me like, you know, what would I consider being a good man? I would say like it's being able to handle stuff kind of on your own.

It doesn't mean that you necessarily have to. The next thing is to be responsible. And so that sort of means like a certain amount of financial responsibility. If you decide once again with your partner that you are not going to be, you know, earning money, I think that's actually totally fine. But that's still, in my opinion, a financially responsible decision, right? You're sitting down with your partner. You guys are having a discussion about it.

And you're sort of concluding, okay, you're going to focus on your career. going to focus on taking care of the kids, taking care of the house, and like, that's actually totally fine. I think a certain amount of responsibility also includes self-care. So this is where I think a lot of men actually trip up, that taking care of your emotions is part of self-care. It's not just physical health, but mental health. That is your responsibility. So even if you struggle with something like depression or a generalized anxiety disorder or bipolar disorder, I don't think it necessarily makes you weak to have those things in the same way that you could have been born with, you know, a collagen deficiency or born with, if you hurt your leg

growing up, you have to take care of that, right? So you should be responsible for your mental health. I think another aspect of responsibility is to a certain degree being responsible for the people around you, right, accepting some amount of responsibility. And so I think it's essentially to be like independent and responsible. Does that mean you need to be able to pay all of your own bills? I think not necessarily. Because the other thing you have to do is part of that responsibility, a healthy amount of responsibility, is to acknowledge the limits of your responsibility. And this is where I think we slip into some amount of toxic masculinity. And if you ask me, what does toxic masculinity mean?

It means taking traditionally male ideals and growing them, having so much hypertrophy in those ideals to where they start to become maladaptive or harmful. So it's fine to be independent. I think being independent is a wonderful ideal. And yet, if we grow that value of independence, all the way to the moon, what we end up is men who are isolated. So in essence, what I consider of as healthy masculinity is like to be independent and to be responsible to take care of your health, take care of your hygiene, try to be as financially

independent as possible, try to be, you know, a self-sufficient human being who makes the world a slightly better place. Now, if you're listening to this, and especially if you're a woman, you may think, oh my God, but those are not traditional, those aren't masculine ideals like I as a woman can do this as well, right? Those are great. And I would completely agree with you. So I think as we are sort of seeing more and more equality, as we're seeing less division of labor, I can be a man or a woman today and be completely independent, right? I can have my own place. I can have my own job. I can contribute to my retirement. I can have a doctor. I can have health insurance. I can have a microwave. I can just completely take care of myself. And so I think the other thing, and this is what I honestly believe about masculinity and femininity is that if you really lean into these yogic teachings, right, these teachings from the karmic traditions, that these things, which a lot of people will agree with, are social constructs, right? They're constructs of the mind. And at the end of the day, I think being a

good man or being a good woman doesn't necessarily have different criteria. I think the real thing is to like be a good human being. And if there are certain aspects of your identity that you appreciate, whether they're masculine or feminine, like by all means lean into those. But at the end of the day, I don't think that healthy masculinity is substantially different from healthy femininity. I think that word healthy doesn't actually come from the masculine or the feminine. The word healthy comes from like the humanness that we all share. So to be independent, to be responsible, I think is ultimately like the essence of healthy masculinity. Remember that as we're kind of summing up, I think that when we get tripped up is when we start to lean into certain aspects of traditional masculinity and we

kind of use them as substitutes for not being able to fulfill particular insecurities. So if, for example, like I don't feel very good about being financially independent, what I'm going to end up doing is comparing my penis size to the size of other people, right? I'm overcompensating. And I use that example kind of intentionally because that's like literally what we see. We see a lot of like hypermasculine or toxic masculine behaviors come out of like an insecurity about being able to fulfill other aspects of what I consider to be masculine. So if you want to be a healthy man, I'd say first of all, just like be a healthy human being. Secondly, be a little bit aware. of what does society expect you to be, and what of society's expectations have you internalized for yourself?

And then be critical of those and ask yourself, okay, which of these am I willing to take on? And which of these am I not willing to take on? And this is where things get really tricky because if you abandon some of those societal norms, there's a very good chance that some people out there will judge you for it. So if you're a man and you decide, you know what, financial independence is not something that, like, I'm just not going to have a career. That's not something that I actually value or care about. be prepared for the judgment, right? And I'm not saying that that's a good, I'm not like, it's an

unfortunate thing, but just be prepared for it. But also be very careful because I don't think the perception that we get judged tends to also be magnified in our mind. So for example, like, if I meet 10 people and one of them judges me, my brain isn't actually going to calculate that only 10% of people judge me. There's actually a really, really important cognitive bias that we're biased towards the negative. So if you get judged by a single person, and that happens to or three times out of a group of, let's say, 10 people, 10 people, 10 people, 10 people, your mind will start to think everyone is judging me this way, which just isn't factually true, but that's just the nature of the mind. So be a little bit careful about that.

So at the end of the day, I think that healthy masculinity, masculinity in general, as we're sort of seeing, is undergoing a crisis of sorts. We're sort of going through a period of what I would call rediscovery. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. So what we're sort of noticing is that there are traditional masculine characteristics, which as society evolves, as technology evolves, some of those characteristics are no longer sort of necessary for men. So there's been a diffusion of responsibility. There's been a growth of independence of both genders. And as a result, what it means to be a man is changing. What makes this really, really tough, though, is that I think that society in terms of the judgment that men face is lagging behind. And this doesn't, once again,

we are not necessarily saying that there aren't judgments that are lagging behind for women as well. I hope I can make one statement without it being comparative to someone else. But I think we're sort of seeing actually like evidence that even though men are, the genders are getting closer and closer and closer and closer together in terms of like what they're capable of and what kind of work and things like that they do, we're sort of seeing evidence of some kind of judgment that kind of lags behind. And then what happens is men will tend to compensate for that, right? So as the world judges me for not being manly enough in one direction, what I have to do is make up for that by a hypertrophy, which means growth, another dimension of masculinity. And it's that

that hypertrophy of that other dimension of masculinity, which I think can really lead into what we call toxic masculinity, which is kind of like an exaggeration of particular masculine traits. And at the end of the day, I think the way to avoid that is to sort of take a step back, really think about, okay, what do I expect, what does society expect for me? What do I expect for myself? And to really lean into being ultimately independent and responsible, not to a fault, right? So you don't need to be completely independent. I think that's the example of hypertrophy of independence. Like you should be relatively independent. But all human beings are going to require the support of other human beings. And at the end of the day, if you kind of notice, oh, those aren't masculine characteristics,

I completely agree. Because I think ultimately, a healthy gender identity has a lot more with being healthy than it does with like the particular gender identity. So that's my take on masculinity. Let's see if people have questions. Yeah, so Lobster Lord is saying women play a big role in this as well. A good number still value those classic male attributes, which is totally fine, right? So that's my point is that there's, anytime I hear this discussion, there's an assumption that the opposite gender is responsible for the judgment. Whereas in my experience, like, everyone's responsible for the judgment, right? Men will judge men for not being able to have a job. Men will judge men for not being in shape. Men will judge men for having small penises, right?

Like even I, like a couple years ago, I made jokes about micropenus and I realized like that was wrong. So apologize for it. But like, men are just a... judgmental towards men. And women are just as judgmental towards women. So I think that like, this is where people fall into trouble is as men start to feel resentful, what we tend to do is blame the opposite gender. Whereas like, I'm not saying that the opposite gender is not it to some degree at fault, but it's not like we're not at fault either, right? I think judgment is the problem. I'm curious if this hypercompensation is also hiring only women in STEM careers. So I think when it comes to the intersection of profession and gender, that's a whole different can of worms.

So this is the other thing that I think we've got to be really careful about when we discuss gender issues, is it's really easy to lean into, let's say, good anthropological science, make statements that are, like, well-supported. And then the moment we open up professions, there's actually a whole other body of research. So one of the things that really frustrates me about gender dynamics is that people assume that, like, data from one, one column applies to something else. Whereas if you really look at it scientifically, piles of research from anthropology, even evolutionary biology, and like statistics on careers and things like that are like there's a bunch of different data that you have to consider. The other thing to remember in general, so we learned this in science. So for a long time, there was a nature,

nurture debate. A particular behavior happens. Is it nature or is it nurture? And it turns out that the answer for most things scientifically is this word called multifactorial. Multifactorial means it's not just one thing. It's a contribution of different variables. And in fact, the more variables you include, the closer you get to the real formula. This concept is completely lost in gender discussions, right? Everyone's so focused on discrimination against men or women. No one's really paying attention to each other. And there's a lot more at play than discrimination. The reason that there are more men in STEM careers versus women in STEM careers has something to do with discrimination, but it also has,

to do with a lot of other things. And so if you all want to talk about profession, like the intersection of gender and profession, fascinating subject, but there's a lot more nuance than most people discuss. Because what happens in those kinds of situations is people tend to have particular experiences

which are emotionally charged. And once that emotion takes over, they don't look at things objectively, right? And I'm not saying that men or women are more guilty of this. I've seen this both ways. I've seen men who are in STEM careers that get passed over by a woman.

And they're like, oh, this is like, you know, since there are so few women in STEM careers, they're getting treated advantageously. This hurts me. Therefore, I'm going to blame that. Whereas, like, it's possible that there was discrimination. That's absolutely possible. But it's also possible that the reason that your colleague was promoted is because they're better at their job than you are.

And the flip is also true, where, you know, women will also be concerned about discrimination, whereas, like, there could be discrimination. Chances are there was one instance of discrimination that really, really hurt. and then we start to see discrimination everywhere, which it could be everywhere. But oftentimes, in my experience, working with women in professional settings, the ones that are the most successful are the ones that accept some amount of individual responsibility, assigned discrimination. It's appropriate weight.

But it's not like discrimination is responsible for everything in the workplace. The truth is that most issues are multifactorial. And maybe that's like an offensive statement, but that's been my experience. Like if you look at, you know, what does it take to grow up with a personality disorder? It takes a lot of different things. socioeconomic status matters, attachment style matters, parents matter, parents' personality structures matter. The truth is that most of science, especially when it comes to humanity, is like complex. It's not explainable by one variable.

And I think that oversimplification is causing lots of problems. Because then what happens is when we oversimplify and we assume everything is discrimination, and then we focus on that one thing, we're not actually addressing all the other issues at play. So maybe I've succeeded at offending everyone, hopefully not. So Grito A, is saying, I wonder how you would apply this topic to those who are non-binary. Are they just exempt from the societal expectations? No. So when it comes to being non-binary, I think this makes things even more challenging in some ways, because you're not necessarily exempt from societal expectations when you're non-binary.

Sometimes you get judged from both sides of the coin. So sometimes you actually have twice the judgment. And the challenge is that if you're non-binary, it's a little bit unclear what is an ideal that. you should be shooting for. Right? So like even if you say that there are attitudes of masculinity and femininity that are harmful, which I completely agree with, it's easy from a sense of a compass.

Like we've got a direction to point towards whether that direction is good or bad. The challenge with being non-binary is that you don't even have a compass, right? So what is the ideal non-binary person? I think that's harder to understand. It's harder to come up with a answer. We're not saying it's the right one. It's easy to envision what the ideal masculine of a man is. It's easy to envision what the ideal, you know, woman is.

it's hard to envision what an ideal non-binary person is, which is precisely why I like the yogic perspective, because yogic perspective is about being a good human. So like to be independent and responsible, I think those are fantastic ideals for someone who's non-binary. It's a great question. What's with Dr. Kay apologizing for every statement? It's because every time we've tried to talk about gender dynamics,

someone gets offended. And I'm trying not to offend people. So it requires a lot of apologies. And for people who are saying, oh, stop apologizing. So this is what's important to understand about making apologies when it comes to gender. dynamics. So if we don't make apologies, who is going to listen to what we have to say? The people that

agree with us, right? They will be, they will listen. But who needs to listen to what we have to say? Not just the people that agree with us. We need the other side to listen as well. And so in order to engage them in conversation, we have to offer disclaimers. And that's okay. Does that make sense? Part of the problem with the internet is that you have people who are like doubling down and not offering disclaimers, not offering a different perspective. And so what they end up doing is alienating the people that disagree with them. And so then I've got my camp and I ain't going to apologize for shit. It's your fault. And then the other side is like, I ain't going to apologize for shit. It's your fault. And there's so much antagonism. And that's where like, I'm going to speak my truth. And all the

rabble rousers behind me with their pitchforks are like, yeah, let's go. And on the flip side, you've got the rabble rousers who believe the exact opposite. They've got their pitchforks and let's go. So the issue is that if you are on one side of the camp, you shouldn't be speaking to your side. You should be speaking to the opposite side. You should engage them in dialogue. Try to understand why do you believe the things like how can you believe what you believe, right? We don't ever stop to ask ourselves how did this person get to this conclusion. We just say this conclusion is wrong. And then everyone selectively cites sources, but what about this? But what about this? But what about this? And then like you miss the original point, right? It's like if a patient

comes into my office with testicular cancer and someone jumps in and says, but breast cancer is more common. It's like, yeah, sure, breast cancer is more common, but like this person has testicular cancer and they need help today. So there's like, there's no reason to correlate or discuss breast cancer and testicular cancer together. But this is what's happening in gender dynamic discussions. Someone is trying to share something about my experience of being a man or a woman. And the first thing that happens, but what about this other experience? It's like, that's not the experience we're talking about. And then what happens is when I try to share my experience, let's say as a man, and someone else says, but what about this with women? Man or greater. So let's say like I make a statement like

the number of men who get helped after being sexually assaulted is very, very low. And then someone counters with, but men are more often perpetrators of sexual assault than women. And so then what happens is like, let's forget for a moment about what statement is true or not. Both of those statements are probably true. But then what happens is how do I feel when someone says that? Like, I don't feel heard. And then if I don't feel heard and someone else says that, right, they're like, oh, but like men are more commonly sexual assault perpetrator.

That could be like a really important point. But if I don't feel heard, I'm not going to listen to that. And then what ends up happening is like, once I try to share something that I struggle with and someone shoots me down, then I sure as hell I'm not going to be like listening to them. And then the moment that they say something, the resentment in my heart comes up and I'm going to counter whatever they say. But what about this, but what about this? And now what's happened is both people are struggling and no one is like paying attention. And for what it's worth, I think the gender discussions in our community are getting way healthier. I don't know if you all have noticed this.

Honestly, this is the only place on the internet that I consistently see people who have different experiences of gender that will like regularly support each other. Only place. And I'm not saying that to too. It's like literally like you can go because what we have on the internet is we have safe spaces for a particular like particular group, right? And it's like we've got echo chambers. We have nowhere where the echo chambers collide.

And what happened actually with us, I don't know if you all paid attention. Echo chambers collided. And then some people got really upset and left. The people who stuck around, though, like now we actually have dialogue, I never realized. You know, so a man sort of talks about being alone. And then someone else is like, I'm an attractive woman and I feel alone all the time. And everyone was like, what? That's possible?

And someone else recently, I saw a great post about, you know, I'm a lesbian woman and I feel alone. And it's like, wow, it seems like maybe what we struggle with is human beings may have a gender component, but it turns out that like most human beings can share a lot of experiences. It turns out that suffering is not uniquely male or uniquely female. I know, it's wild. It's wild. Yeah, so Uber Wolf 23 is saying, I'm non-binary, but except people who don't understand or agree, I get ostracized by both sides. People just can't wrap their head around.

I'm with you. They're like, they try to bucket you. And the thing is, you don't fall into either bucket. So even if you check some of the boxes, everyone hyperfocuses on the boxes you don't check. Which is true of both masculinity and femininity as well. Like, just think about it. Even if I'm a man and I have a nice, bushy beard, and I know how to be that. a chop firewood and I know how to grill, people will be focused on, oh, like, I don't have a job

because I'm out in the wilderness all day. And if you're a woman, it's like, you can have a fantastic career, but then people will keep asking you, like, why don't you have kids? And if you decide to have kids, people will like, like, some of those, like, you know, career women will, like, look at you you with pity in their eyes and they'll be like, I can't believe you gave it up for this. Like, the judgment, there's no end of the judgment. So that's like, when it comes to being like a good human being in gender dynamics, like, you can't stop other people from judging. The only thing is, you only thing that you can really do is stop judging yourself. And by that, I mean, don't judge yourself, but also don't judge other people, right? Like, the judgment stops here. Like,

you can't control the rest of it.