>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in a doctor's office, where a teenage boy has a specific requests.

He wants a prescription for testosterone, not because he needs it, but because he wants it.

He has seen a tidal wave of social media content with young men doing something called t-maxxing, ramping up testosterone to increase muscle size.

One influencer called it the way to become a gigachad, which is the internet's way of describing the idealized, man ripped muscles confident, dominant, not emotional, not soft.

Well, you can imagine a lot of problems with this trend.

Dr.

Theodore Strange is an internist at Northwell, Staten Island University Hospital.

He told the New York Post recently that a lot of boys and young men are pursuing t-maxxing, and it's dangerous.

He said, quote, I understand young people don't think about those things long term because they're thinking about what is right now and what they want to do now and how they want to look internally.

You don't know what you're doing to your blood.

Count your heart, your prostate, your skin and your adrenal glands.

End quote.

The Guardian recently covered the meme ification of manliness, saying, quote, social media misinformation is driving men to clinics in search of testosterone therapy that they don't need.

Adding pressure to already stretched waiting lists, doctors have said testosterone replacement therapy is a prescription only treatment recommended for men with a clinically proven deficiency confirmed by symptoms and repeated blood tests.

But a wave of viral videos on TikTok and Instagram have begun marketing blood tests as a means of accessing testosterone as a lifestyle supplement, advertising the hormone as a solution to young men's problems, end quote.

So what exactly are the problems that young men are trying to solve?

That is a more complicated question.

CNN recently covered the new Common Sense Media survey of boys, and they report, quote, if your adolescent son is online, he's almost certainly seeing content that promotes masculinity and suggests troubling things about girls.

Most boys, 73% see content about digital masculinity regularly, which includes posts about fighting, building muscles and making a lot of money, according to a new Common Sense Media survey.

Boys with higher exposure to this kind of content have lower self-esteem and are lonelier, according to the July survey of 1000 plus boys aged 11 to 17 in the United States.

These boys are also more likely to hide their feelings and believe they shouldn't express emotions, such as by crying or showing fear, end quote.

And The Guardian reports that adolescent boys who cling to stereotypically masculine traits are far more likely to hurt others and to be hurt themselves.

The Jesuit Social Services Survey found that boys and young men feel pressured to be manly, which means in the current culture they should be stoic, dominant, and avoid seeming gay or feminine.

Those same boys who endorse these ideas are more likely to commit violence or bullying against others.

I noticed recently that a semi-frequent guest here in the Rochester area in his Rochester days, I should say University of Vermont visiting Professor Joe Henderson is helping organize an event later this month regarding the troubling trends for boys and young men, particularly in rural areas where Joe lives and works.

The event is called Are the Boys okay?

Growing up white, rural and male in a changing world?

And I've asked Joe to join the program along with one of his colleagues this hour to talk about these issues.

And I want to welcome Dr.

Joseph Henderson, visiting faculty member at the University of Vermont.

Back to the program.

Hi, Joe.

Welcome.

>> Hey, Evan.

How are you?

>> Very good.

And it's good to have Shawndel Fraser as well.

And environmental psychologist who is part of the panel and has done a lot of work in this area.

Sean, welcome.

Thanks for making time for the program.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> So, Joe, let me start with you.

And I just want to ask you why this event is coming together.

Why now?

Why is this on your radar?

>> it's a it's a good question.

I mean, it's on my radar just as a man.

And watching some of these things kind of unfold over time.

the you know, I have a son.

I have a daughter.

I've been an educator for a long time, and and have seen kind of boys and young men pulled in lots of different directions and kind of some of the influences that, that are shaping their lives that are, you know, some quite positive, but also some quite negative.

I've had students in the past who have been, you know, members of neo fascist groups who have been radicalized online towards some of these kind of really dangerous ideologies.

I will say it hasn't been most of the men, in my experience.

but I do think there is a conversation happening in the culture.

and also you know, and also in especially a lot of educational spaces around kind of what's happening with boys.

What do we do here?

what have we overlooked?

and I'll add an additional piece to this, too.

I do a lot of international comparative work, and I'm working on a research study between the United States and Denmark, where I do a lot of work.

So I think some, you know, some of the issues that you just mentioned there are specific to the United States and, and I think really speak to decisions that have been made at the policy level here in the United States.

And I would urge us to kind of go in that direction, because I think it's I think there are things that are unique to this society that that are shaping this, that are simply not present in other societies or are handled differently in other societies.

Let me leave it.

Say it that way.

>> Sean, as an environmental psychologist and someone who's working on some of these same issues, I'll give you some space to kind of describe the landscape as you see it.

>> I actually work with men, and I look at the level of nervous system and how people show up in everyday life through the roles that they inhabit, and also with the confidence in which they're able to express themselves truly.

So that's where I work on it.

It's not this issue so much as looking at it before it crystallizes into ideological issues, and looking at where we are losing contact with people and humane sense.

>> Sean, do you see any commonality among I'm trying not to overgeneralize here, but I'm thinking about what what Joe is saying about the online radicalization and people who might be susceptible to that.

And I wonder if you see any commonality in that population.

>> Yeah.

I mean, Joe is talking.

He's already referencing changes in our society, you know, political, sociological, economical.

They create conditions that shape bodies, minds, social practices and norms.

And so the commonality is this soup that we're in that we call our society that's subject to different political changes that affect what resources we have access to, including the ability to think critically.

Right.

That's a scaffolded skill.

That's not something that's innate to the individual.

And so being able to access different resources that let you feel safe to express your emotions, that let you know that it's okay to have male role models that show ways of being that handle different and strong emotion.

Aside from violence, being able to critically assess what you're taking in.

These are things that have been affected over the past number of decades, both with the introduction of technology into like 24 hours of our day to, you know, what, what schools can and can't do, you know, in terms of allowing bodies to move and work out energy.

So, yeah, we're subjected to the same situations.

And then there are slight changes that occur by culture and age group, things like that.

>> And Joe mentioned and let me ask you about this, Dr.

Henderson, you mentioned the kind of the neo fascist popularity that I think a lot of, a lot of adults are surprised at.

And I see some tension or contradictions that I want to make sure I understand.

Look, we can't solve everything here, but part of this is trying to do trying to understand what's going on and why.

And here's some of the tension I see.

So two people that I would put in that, you know, sort of that bucket of very popular online authoritarian or neo fascist are people like Nick Fuentes and the Tate brothers.

Well, the Tate brothers have come to fame by boasting about their sexual exploits and talking about the objectification of women, almost the enslavement of women, boasting about how women should be told that they are the property of men, that they are the sexual property of men, and that to be a real man and the Tate's world, you know, you are sexually active with a lot of women, and you are the dominant figure in those worlds.

You don't get emotionally attached, but you have a lot of sex.

Nick Fuentes recently said he's 27 years old, that he's a virgin because he can't stand to be around women, that women are liberal.

They're annoying.

And that he has said on his show that having sex with women is gay, which I mean, is a very strange thing to say, but those are very, very different viewpoints among two people who are pretty popular.

How do we square some of that up here?

I mean, how what are the definitions of masculinity?

If those two poles exist in that world?

>> Yeah, I'm not sure they're actually that different.

I mean, I think the the thing that is at the root of those things is a kind of misogyny and hatred of women.

And and I think, you know, there's a structuring worldview of seeing women as property, seeing women as objects to be dominated and subservient and hated.

And, you know, I, I think, I think I think it's a very old idea.

These are very old ideas that are kind of pervasive in society.

And, and, you know, they, they, they often couch these things in, in like, nature or like it's natural to do this.

And, you know, as somebody trained in anthropology, I would question what they mean by human nature.

But but I think I think what, what they're speaking to is or I think it's a reflection of a kind of sense of anxiety that a lot of men have.

And they're they're clearly creating brands and markets and capitalizing upon larger shifts and kind of dislocations that are happening in society.

And so, you know, I've, I've, I've seen men kind of fall into that influence.

And, you know, you have a lot of young men who are like all young people in search of meaning, trying to make their make sense of the world.

And, you know, if they if they go down some of these kind of internet rabbit holes, they're, they're sold, literally sold.

There's money to be made here.

on on, on a kind of particular worldview that treats them a particular way and kind of, I think takes advantage of them, but also sells them a vision of the world where, you know, they are supposed to dominate and they are supposed to be the ones that are kind of guiding and shaping everything.

And, you know, it's it's it's in some ways a similar kind of hierarchical worldview of men in charge and, you know, women subservient.

And I think that's a kind of cottage industry for a certain kind of guy.

I think politically we should be really, like, specific around the sociological research here.

Young men in the United States are actually moving left.

And when you when you look at the sociological data, they are they are more liberal than prior cohorts of men.

there's a tendency to talk about kind of like whether this is a problem or not.

young women are moving very, very left.

And some of the, some of the theorizing around that is that that's related to kind of self-preservation and protection and looking at a society that is increasingly violent and hostile to their rights.

you know, I saw a survey.

I don't have it on hand, but I saw a survey recently that was showing that young women are at now at the highest levels of wanting to leave the United States that's ever been recorded.

and, and I think that's a, you know, there's a, there's a response that is going on around gender dynamics in this country.

And so you have a lot of anxiety around gender and and kind of subsequent responses that are playing themselves out, playing themselves out economically, playing themselves out politically playing themselves out at the level of like intimate partner relationships.

Right?

Like, we know that men who have this kind of domination ethic are more likely to abuse children, more likely to engage in intimate partner violence, more, more likely to harm themselves.

and, you know, more likely to engage in self-destructive and kind of community destructive behaviors.

And so, you know, one of the arguments I would make and I've seen this firsthand with some of my students, is that this is not actually even healthy for men.

Some of the men that I have been in relationship with who've, you know, as a like some of my students who, you know, I, I see them trying to find meaning in these kind of online spaces that are quite nasty and violent.

And you can see that in to, to kind of speaking to what Shondell talks about.

You can see it in their physical body, like how they carry themselves is is often quite heavy and, and I I'm, I'm sad about that.

Right.

I'm sad that there are that, that there are a lot of young men who are being preyed upon.

>> Shawndell.

Can you elaborate on that point from Joe?

I mean, Joe says he sees men carrying themselves in a heavy way, that they are affected, that they think they're finding community, but they are becoming more violent.

They are becoming more self-destructive, that they are putting themselves at risk.

And the way they carry themselves is something you can almost physically see.

Do you agree with that?

>> So there is a directionality to language.

And the way this conversation is framed actually kind of throws a punch back at people who are already in a defensive posture.

Everything that's exhibited in their body language, their languaging, their priorities and stated beliefs are symptoms.

They're like tertiary symptoms.

So we have things that have happened again within the realms of economy and politics and sociology and education.

That's those are also symptoms, right?

Those things are preceded by causal events.

And so, yes, it is visible within bodies because context affects the person.

And there are certain people that have more of a capability, a capacity to affect context.

For the rest of us.

So yes, it is visible, but some of this that Joe is talking about is I see it as sublimation, like a basic concept where feeling under resourced or under-resourced, unseen.

disempowered, underemployed, not having enough finances, no social support in terms of family because everyone's struggling.

That frustration lashes out and looks for security, and that security can be had in rigid ideas.

It gives you some a guidepost to hold on to a moral anchor, even if it's not moral in the way we think of good and bad.

It gives them something to hold themselves to.

It's a stern where everything else is beyond our individual capacity to to manage.

And so without having the ability to think critically, and I think about teaching to the test, like how is that affected people's ability to really critically assess what information they receive, except how do they refute it?

How do you question it without these skills holding on to a strong guidepost that is coming from a bully that distracts you from the true causes?

It only makes sense that it's happening.

And so I see a mentality that's actually subject rather than bullying.

>> I hear a lot of empathy in your response.

Shawndell.

And so let me read an email from a listener and get your take on this.

This is from Charles, who says it is worth pointing out that if boys and men are constantly told that their base instincts and the activities they enjoy are toxic, that they are inherently bad, irredeemable people and all the things we've heard out of the left over the past few years.

There's going to be boys and men who reject those ideas and seek out other opinions, not all of whom will be the best sources of information.

That's from Charles.

What do you make of that?

Sean?

>> Even in my work with, you know, grown men who are kind of beyond the the framing that we're thinking about in certain ways, I find a lot of internalized shame around just being in the body, natural desire to be joyful or to have non-sexual touch.

Platonic, engaged, caring, touch.

There's a lot of shame that I think for as long as we can record history, certainly in the Western context, shame has been an effective tool of social control.

And so I think we just now today have more outlets and tools and wordings to be able to really point it out.

But yeah, shame being told that even parenting hyper what is it?

Toxic masculinity.

Right.

There are ways of being toxic.

Absolutely.

Framing it with masculinity without a way of understanding how that term came to be.

For some will equal, oh, this is a toxic way to be when masculinity in its essential form is associated with various ways of doing this, getting things accomplished, being present, strength, force, courage.

Right.

It shows up in different ways with the masculine, the feminine, and everything in between.

And so without having the nuance, one can start to believe without any scaffolding, any support to think it through, that there is something inherently bad about the self and other people like you.

>> And so, Joe Henderson, let me ask you to elaborate on that point there.

Charles would argue then that there is a backfire effect if, in his view, people largely on the left want to just constantly call out what they see as toxic or tell kids that they are toxic or their behavior is toxic, he says.

There's a backfire effect, and people are going to look elsewhere, even if it's to the wrong kind of sources.

Do you agree with that?

>> Yeah, I'm I don't know.

I'd have to think about whether I fully agree with that.

I mean, I think the, the I think just from a like an educational perspective, I have never found it useful in my own practice and also in the research literature that that like blaming young people for the ills of society.

I just find to be a not helpful, not useful a way to.

Damage relationships between teachers and students.

I mean, I think, you know, young people are are growing up kind of searching for meaning and trying to find their way in the world.

And, you know, for an educator to, to, to I mean, I think in the most extreme to like, look at somebody and say, like, you know, you're the problem.

What does what what work is that doing?

I just don't find it useful at all.

And I've always tried to say, you know, like some of these big structural issues that Sean and I are talking about predate often by hundreds of years the kind of worlds that these kids are, are coming into.

And so I, I do think there's work to be done around kind of modeling healthier masculinity, helping people, helping boys think about what does it mean to be a good man?

what does it mean to be kind of in community with other men in ways that are helpful?

I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done around that.

I don't think the kind of shaming stuff that that Sean Bell was talking about, or maybe that Charles is talking about is just you.

It's useful.

And I think, you know, if people are constantly telling you that you're bad and that you're the problem, like, of course you're going to disengage from them, like, why would you why would you subject yourself to that?

Right.

And so it makes sense that some people would disengage from that.

But at the same time, like, there are real issues around misogyny.

And, you know, I study climate change and like, we know that that men engage with environmental issues differently than women.

Like we can point that out.

We can talk about that.

We can talk about the implications of that.

I don't think we can.

I ask you away from that.

>> Can I ask you?

Sorry to interrupt, but I've got to read this paragraph and I want to get your take on this Dr.

Henderson.

Sure.

this is from the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

The headline some men may downplay climate change risks to avoid appearing feminine.

And I'll just read a bit from the excerpt.

New research provides evidence that men who are concerned about maintaining a traditional masculine image may be less likely to express concern about climate change.

The findings suggest that acknowledging environmental problems is psychologically linked to traits such as warmth and compassion.

These traits are stereotypically, stereotypically associated with femininity in many cultures.

Consequently, men who feel pressure to prove their manhood may avoid environmentalist attitudes to protect their gender identity.

I mean, what do you make of that, Joe?

>> Funny.

Sean del and I were actually just talking about this recent study that that just came out.

I what do I make of it?

I mean, I, I it it mirrors what I have experienced as somebody who works in this space.

I was telling Sean, you know I taught an environmental education class at the University of Vermont last year, and I had I think one man in the entire class and of 25 students.

And, and I was just thinking, like, what's what's going on here?

Like, why are men not engaging with this topic?

And I think I think it goes back to something that you were talking about at the beginning of the show, Evan, which is like, how are men socialized?

Are they socialized to kind of dominate each other in the earth, or are they socialized to care for one another, to care for the creation?

If you want to use that kind of language?

or not.

And so a lot of it goes into kind of the different ways in which men engage with these issues.

I will say this is different in other countries, right?

So when I am in Denmark, it is much more common to see men in these kind of caregiving roles.

And that's a function of the policies and kind of social and cultural choices that the society has made.

And so it doesn't I think we should be careful about generalizing, because I think some of these things are culturally specific.

but I but it is, it is it is interesting.

I think the, the way in which people are engaging differently about this, you know, what do we do about it?

That's why we're doing research on this.

I don't know that I have actually a good answer for that, other than trying to think through, you know, the first step for me as a scholar is trying to understand the issues.

And so what are the interventions?

I think that's a that's a different kind of question that I don't have the answers for yet.

>> Let me just follow up with one point.

Oh.

Go ahead, Sean, I want you to jump in here too.

Here.

There's a lot here.

Go ahead.

>> Yeah.

>> So this actually makes me think of some of the loggers that I work with.

And, you know, they were being like, most active over the past 40 years.

And the approach to forest management as being one of also, I don't know, conservation would be the correct word, but certainly stewarding the environment so that it can continue to produce over the long term and understanding that they're, you know, interconnecting forces of life that need to happen in order for the forest to survive so that the economy can continue.

And so I wonder if even the I guess I would question the people who have these attitudes around climate change, what is their connection to the earth and to stewardship of natural spaces?

Because if it's completely theoretical, then what is it based on?

It's going to be based on information that's been consumed rather than lived.

And not having access to the embodied presence with nature, right?

Whether it's the looming threat of your island being subsumed by the next tsunami or having a physical space that provides you the space that you need in the otherwise chaotic life of your family?

If you don't have these reference points, abstractly, caring for a thing that doesn't mean anything to you, it's not going to be available.

So for me, for the study itself, not knowing those answers, I don't know how far it applies, but it also just speaks to me about the loss of ways of living that would grant people access to natural spaces to care.

>> I want to invite listeners.

I'd love to hear from you.

If you want to send me an email.

connections@wxxi.org.

I'm curious to know if the young men in your sphere, maybe they're your kids or in your family.

maybe it's in your social circles.

You know, in general, have you noticed a change in their own disposition?

And what is of interest to them, how social they are or not?

I'm very curious to know about that, because a lot of what we're talking about, our guests have, have, have have qualified that this is obviously not all men.

It's not all young men, it's not all teenage boys, it's not a majority, but it is a growing number.

And it's a bigger number than people probably thought.

A lot of people probably thought possible.

In recent years, the pull of some of these movements, yes, the Tates and the Fuentes, but in general sort of neofascist movements and movements that seek to subjugate the rights of women.

And I think Joe made a really important point earlier this hour that a common thread is this misogyny.

And it can take different forms, but that's a lot, a lot of the time at the core of this.

So I'd love to hear what people are experiencing.

And if they want to share anything there.

If you want to call the program, it's toll free.

It's 844295 talk.

It's 8442958255263 WXXI.

If you call from Rochester 2639994 again, you can join the chat on YouTube.

If you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube channel.

And I know these are not easy subjects to discuss, but they are really, really important.

And when we come back from our only break of the hour, I'll take some of your feedback and we're going to talk a little bit more about what our guests think we can do about it, although they are both field researchers and they're both very actively engaged in the questions of what we do about it, and no one has a perfect answer.

So let's take this break.

We'll come right back and dig right back in with Dr.

Joseph Henderson.

Shawndel Fraser talking about are the boys okay?

Coming up in our second hour, we sit down with Michael Solis, the new executive director of Writers & Books in Rochester.

And just a year ago, Michael Solis never had Rochester on his radar.

That's because he was working in Geneva, Switzerland, and he was supposed to be heading up a brand new gig, a big budget, big plans.

And then the Trump administration wiped out USAID and a lot of international funding.

Michael had to regroup.

And now he's here and we're going to talk about what comes next.

Next, our.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, working with members to find health coverage for every stage of life, helping to make care and coverage more accessible in more ways for more people across the Rochester community.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson seeing some comments on our various platforms.

Probably some cheeky comments about t-maxxing and testosterone.

but I'm before the last couple of weeks getting ready for this program.

I was very much in the dark about t-maxxing testosterone maxing.

I mean, there's all kinds of stuff in the in the internet culture right now.

about, you know, telling young men that they need to max out on testosterone.

They need to become a gigachad.

They need to have a very specific, certain look it's hyper muscular and idealized.

I mean, I don't.

Sean Shawndel Fraser.

Do you hear anything about this?

I don't know how much your world dips into some of this, but, I mean, what should people do if they start to encounter maybe kids in their lives talking about T-maxxing?

I don't know if that's outside of your sphere of influence.

>> It is.

>> Outside of my sphere of influence, but it does raise, I don't know.

There was someone that I spoke with, a colleague talked about that the largest consumer of gender affirming services is actually heterosexual people.

And so it's fascinating to hear the desire for something that's been made more available in recent years because of a community that is now marginalized, for their very needs, for quality of life.

But in terms of t-maxxing, you know, it's not within my direct sphere.

>> Okay.

And this is an email from Melissa who says, related to Charles's question, I'm interested in opinions related to how adolescents and young men are responding and adapting to the prevalent social opinion against male dominant societies when they had nothing to do with that.

and I, I mean, I'll start with Joe here, you know, I know you are.

Well, I'm going to put it in my own words, in talking to you over the years about climate change and the way that different generations have approached these issues, I think you have been defensive or at least guarded in, in allowing too much blame or any blame to be placed on the youngest adults who are trying to deal with a very quickly changing world that they did not create.

and I, I take that point.

I think this listener is asking maybe a similar question, but on a different track there, you know, for the for the young men who are trying to respond or adapt to the social opinion that is against male dominant societies, when these young men might be saying, like, I didn't, I didn't have anything to do with this, and I'm feeling blamed here.

What do you think, Joe?

>> there's a lot there.

I think I want to just bounce off something Sean just said, which I think is a really important point and relates to this, which is that, you know, there is a kind of gender affirming hormone therapy care that.

Right, if you want to think about if you want to think about t-maxxing through the lens of you know, I'm around a lot of medical professionals and I have heard these same kind of reports and of of young men coming in and asking for testosterone therapy from their medical providers.

And I find that to be reflective of a sense of kind of needing to perform your manliness, that it's that it's never really enough in their eyes or in the eyes of these influencers, like, you're you're always kind of one way ratcheting, like it's never enough.

You have to always kind of be more and more and more manly.

Right.

And I think that to me, that speaks to something you mentioned earlier, which is related to your question, which is about this kind of sense of insecurity that that men feel in, in our society in particular.

And again, I'm going to draw the comparative lens here.

This is not an insecurity that I experience when I am in Denmark.

Right.

we have structured a society in the United States that makes it very, very hard, for men to have men and women stable labor, employment.

We have very poor family policies in this country.

It's very hard almost impossible to gain parental leave.

the first time I ever went to Copenhagen, I was walking around and I was struck by how many young men I saw out in the middle of the day, pushing strollers around, and, and, and that was fascinating to me.

It was fascinating to me that I was struck by that, because I was when I had when we had our two children, I was generously rewarded with zero days off to care, to care for my children.

And the amount of kind of stress and burden that that placed upon me was really frustrating.

I felt like I had to both be successful at work and be successful as a caregiver.

And, and I constantly felt like I was failing at both.

And I think what what we've done is created a society that makes people feel really insecure and, and they are going to try to find security in all kinds of places, whether it's in gun culture, whether it's in, you know, crypto investments.

There's all sorts of grifters who are out there trying to provide this false sense of security.

And, you know, what they're providing are these kind of very individual kind of biohack levels of security.

And and I think, you know, true security is is something that comes at the, the level of the community or the society.

And so, you know, my Danish friends, they love to joke with me and they always say, like you Americans, you talk about freedom.

You're some of the least free people we've ever met.

And the, the, the point that they're trying to make is that we're actually a deeply fearful and insecure society.

And I think you can see that.

You can see that across the board in our society.

And so, you know, for me, it's it's a question of kind of like you know, economic changes that have caused this when you when you look at the dislocation, especially in our area, like I'm in the Adirondacks, this is an area that that has historically been a place of extraction, whether it's trees or minerals.

And, you know, a lot of those industries are gone.

And and so men in these places are looking around and saying, like, what am I supposed to do?

Right?

And, you know, the best employers, quote, unquote, some of the best employers in the area are the are prisons, right.

And and that extracts its own kind of violence as well.

And so I just, I look around at a society that makes people very insecure.

And then we wonder, like why men are being subjected to these kind of snake oil salesmen who are trying to sell them on a kind of false bill of goods, about about being powerful.

And I think it's I think it's a, I think that's like really at the extremes, I will say, like a lot of boys and men are just looking for alternative ways of being.

And that's the thing.

Maybe that we should focus on is, you know, how do you you know, some of the largest growth industries in the United States are things like healthcare and education and what's the work that's being done about bringing men into those more caregiving professions?

Right.

Well, you know, where where is that work happening?

Well, it's happening.

>> I want to follow up on the idea of work here with an email from Greg, who says and Greg is talking about Chaundel here.

Greg says, Evan, your guest mentioned working with loggers.

Men are quickly losing work identities and we should be deeply worried about that.

Shawndell can you respond to Greg's email?

And maybe if you've got more to say on where you're seeing the loss of identity, because a lot of the upcoming event that you're part of will talk about boys, teenagers, young men, people who haven't had decades to work careers.

But I think they are seeing the career possibilities.

Maybe in fathers or other people in their lives.

Certainly men are in some industries losing identities, and that can be challenging.

>> Yeah, well.

>> Culturally, Americans, you know, what's the first thing you ask is what do you do?

>> What do you do?

>> Versus trying to understand who the person is in front of you?

So when an industry leaves an area, you have a regional identity that's lost, as well as the identity of your profession.

So, I mean, some of the things that I've seen are challenges with substance abuse, right?

Really trying to manage the nervous system, feeling of insecurity and anxiety, and just trying to have a sense of calm.

And that's available over the counter.

I don't judge a lot of that.

And so I see that I hear a lot about loneliness and people with, you know, valuable traits that we all need.

But not having anyone to pass it on to.

So watching their field die that is well, is demoralizing.

So yeah, it plays out in people's outlook.

And then places like the Adirondacks right now you have you have a once extraction is done, you have a tourist economy and now you have class based ways of relating where in your own hometown you're now in a servant role to seasonal people.

And so you have to adjust your your sense of capacity and agency along socioeconomic lines.

For people that visit, you know, for short periods of time.

So, yeah, the systems that are not that used to support they they don't support anymore.

And people are looking for security and identity wherever they can.

>> Yeah.

And Shawndel Fraser, let me just follow that point on identity.

It is absolutely the case that in this country, when you meet someone, maybe the first question that you get is, well, what do you do?

And my own dad came on this show ten years ago when he left his career after 40 years and felt almost instantly adrift.

And that was very different than the way my mother felt, who has always felt like if she could just get away from her career and relax, that would be fine too.

Not that she doesn't enjoy it, but my dad just felt like the identity was gone and on the one hand, you know, I hear what you're saying about comparing the United States to other places in the world where that might not be the case, and wanting to create that, wanting to help people see that it doesn't.

Your identity doesn't have to be about what you do.

You don't have to be in service to, you know, some sort of machine.

However, I think that getting from where we are to that point may take some doing.

And in the interim, do you think we need to show more compassion to people who do feel a brokenness with the loss of identity, whether it's the loggers you've worked with, whether it's people in other industries?

>> Well.

>> That I feel is 100% the answer.

Whether it's enacted on a policy scale or if it's 1 to 1, the compassion operationalized.

How do you do it is to be present with how a person shows themselves to be to you, and you receive it without judgment.

And so what I do is really just sit in presence with people, and I come to understand how people put themselves together.

And it then gives like a silhouette.

It's almost like a cutout that shows what is acting on them.

And what are the different trajectories, valences that are compelling them to show up in one way versus the other.

So instead of pathologizing the person, I see the ways that systems are pathological and exacting.

The cost on people's bodies and their minds and their ways of being and relating.

>> Joe, can you weigh in on Greg's email there about, you know, the concern that he has about the loss of work identity in young men in this country?

>> Yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of layers to that.

And I think I'm, I'm I'm always in awe when I hear Sean talk about their practice with, with people.

But it's I think there are you know, there are broad scale changes in the American economy that have influenced different parts of the country in different ways.

Right.

So if you look at, like the deindustrialization of the Rust Belt, parts of the country and how that really destabilized a lot of people you know, you could you could probably directly talk about that and how our elections have kind of gone back and forth the last couple of cycles.

Right?

It's it's about kind of what are the futures of these places?

And, you know can they be made great again to, to kind of use the parlance of our time.

Right.

But so I think some of it is about trying to reclaim and restore a sense of lost identity.

And, you know, that's that's often the purview, especially of fascist movements.

You're you're trying to restore a kind of sense of greatness.

And and, or for some people.

Right?

Not for not for everybody.

And so, so I, you know, I think the, the, you know, the question about like, futures is really interesting to me here, kind of what are the features that are available to people?

Are they you know, are they are they ones that are kind of pro-social and beneficial and humane or are they not?

And, and I look around at like some of the opportunities and you know, there's all this talk about kind of like mental health crisis and, and deaths of despair.

Right.

And, and and I, I just wonder kind of what are the pathways that are available to people and, you know, are they humane?

which, you know, when, when people have don't have that sense that they have a kind of viable future, you know, now you're in the land of opioid addictions and and susceptible, like people who are susceptible to demagogues, who are going to kind of promise them some sort of restored greatness and glory.

And I, you know, the the question I think of, of what do you do that, that, that we just brought up is, is very much a, an economic question.

It's a kind of a question of status and a question of class.

Like what do you do?

Locates you in the society relative to your work.

And it would be nice just I'll just speak for myself here.

Right.

It would be nice to have a society where people didn't have to live and die based on whether they had employment or not, and, and that like the question of what do you do is way less important in a when I, when I'm in in Denmark because it doesn't actually matter as much.

Right.

Like there are really robust social systems and social safety net.

that, that in many ways allow people to do the things that they're actually interested in doing because they're not dependent upon an employer for things like health care or, family leave policies or things like that.

Right.

It's a it frees them up to kind of live lives that are more flourishing and that are less dependent upon other people.

So I don't know if I've really answered the question.

I'm just kind of like moving around it.

But it's a good question.

>> Let me read two emails that are have some similar threads here.

Kate says it's obvious why fewer people are getting fewer younger people are getting married or even having sex.

Young women see the direction that their male counterparts are going, and they want nothing to do with it.

That is from Kate, Wayman says.

I think this division of women and femme presenting folks going to the left and the men and mask presenting folks, masculine presenting folks going toward the right is interesting in the framework of interpersonal relationships, the rise of the term male loneliness epidemic in the zeitgeist, women and femme folks have autonomy.

Why would they engage with these harmful relations?

I've seen this self-protection from women and femme folks being called natural selection, and the effects of that.

Do you think the natural selection term applies to this phenomenon and the traditional biological definition of the term, or the greater declining birth rates globally, that is, from women?

let me go ahead and send it over to Shawndel Fraser.

First Shawndell.

>> No, not natural selection.

It's selection or response to changing conditions, but not natural, right?

Nature would be the storm that comes and knocks out power lines.

No one can control that.

No human shaped construct structure can control that.

We create our systems and our structures.

And so people are responding to those changing conditions.

Is there a selection process?

Yes.

I can get behind that piece of it.

>> Okay.

And but oh go ahead.

Shawndell.

>> partial thought that just emerged was the with the first email and femme people or women choosing not to interact with men under these conditions.

I mean, there are real implications living in a femme body or being femme, presenting, being in a woman's body and interacting with a man who may or may not have greater physical strength, may or may not have economic power, who also just biologically has the capacity to change your life forever, whether or not they stay physically present.

So people are trying to make everyone is trying to make the best choices that they can for their well-being and their longevity, as they're able to even think about it.

So yeah.

>> Joe, this is something that Tucker Carlson asked Nick Fuentes about.

He said, you know, why aren't people your age getting married?

And Fuentes said, it's the women.

They're too liberal.

He literally said, I'm it's almost a direct quote.

The women are too liberal.

the men can't take it.

It's hard to be around them.

And, you know, look, that's its own sort of.

>> It's its own.

It's its own little self-fulfilling prophecy.

Right?

They they've they've they've kind of created a condition whereby you know, they're, they're, they're telling people about this in a way that reinforces their own kind of failure.

So I, you know, I don't that's what I would expect.

I mean, the, the thing that you're not going to hear from them is that it's not actually true about marriage rates.

Marriage rates among wealthy people are actually still largely fine.

it's mostly working class and lower class people who aren't getting married.

And that's a really interesting kind of testament about stability, economic decisions.

It's expensive to get married, right?

so you know that even that is a kind of it's there are these nice little stories that people tell so that they don't really have to deal with things like economic inequality.

>> well, let me close with this.

David wrote in to say that that our guests are ignoring the fact that men want to feel strong, men want to feel purpose.

And it's okay to say that, and it's maybe we should be talking about ways to allow men to feel strong and have purpose, but in more productive ways.

Joe, in general, do you agree with that?

>> Yeah, I don't I don't disagree with you on that.

I mean, I think it's a I fully agree with that.

I just think the question is with, with what effect in the world.

Right.

Feeling strong by dominating other people is not something I'm personally interested in.

And so I think the, you know, the question is toward what ends is he talking about?

Right.

>> Yeah.

I think that is the question.

but chaundel I mean, do you think at least the framing is okay to say you know, that in general, men want to feel strength strong and, a sense of purpose for something and that that's okay to recognize that.

>> Absolutely.

>> The absence of purpose and the feeling of not being able to affect the world the way you would like to, that feels satisfying is underneath all of this.

Absolutely.

I mean, I work with macho men, really strong men who have the capacity to endure and have endured incredibly challenging things.

And what I think remains stable with them through difficulties economically and socially, is that they've proven to themselves through the doing that they can make it.

And some of these fellows are not even getting the opportunity to try jobs, to be physically active, right?

We have generations of people who haven't been outside in any realistic format for most of their life.

They don't know what it is to play and to sweat and to negotiate relationships on a playground or in a wild space.

They don't have the muscles formed to actually have a sense of themselves as strong, or have jobs that are beyond working on the computer, where purpose is created by the self, enacted on materials, and then shown as an object in front of you.

Like a lot of people need to move their bodies.

But we've moved to an intellectual economy over the past number of decades.

So yes, absolutely.

Men need those things.

Absolutely need those things.

But the opportunities from them for them have changed because our economy has changed.

>> that is a, I think, a powerful place to leave it.

I want to say Sue had written in to ask, why would those feelings strengthen purpose and also be feminine?

It's a fair question, and I don't think our guests are arguing that they are not.

I think we're just responding to the question of how we frame the issues regarding young men in particular, and what they are facing and feeling.

And I want to thank our guests for a really stimulating conversation.

Boy, this flew by Dr.

Joseph Henderson, visiting faculty member at the University of Vermont.

Come back sometime.

Your father away from Rochester now.

But you're welcome back anytime, Joe.

>> Thanks, Evan.

>> Shawndel Fraser, environmental psychologist, field researcher.

Sam, you are welcome back anytime to to share more of what you're working on and share with our audience.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Thank you so much.

>> And listeners, we got a lot to talk about coming up on our next hour.

Stay with us on Connections.

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