This women really nailed it. Even though I was a senior during Covid the experience she describes of male puberty, I also experienced. Luckily I had a pair of strong parents that led by example, so how to act and process human interaction was experienced in the home. Never perfect but functional so you can work things out as you gain more experience and naturally mature.

60 years ago my future was shattered as a boy by being told to shut up, because the second feminist wave had arrived and it was now the time for females. I went along with the new times, but finding everyone else keeping behaving naturally, being females and males as they felt, while I suppressed my natural male urges. No male to talk about that, and no female either. Yes, girls wanted to be friends with me, because I was not dangerous and did not try to bed them. As their gay-friend, that I was not. All misunderstandings you can imagine happened. For boys nowadays it myst be much much more confusing. Sad sad times for everyone.

11:53 The "always on guard" thing is ABSOLUTELY NOT a new feeling. Source: Was a young boy (mumble mumble) years ago. :P

Around the 13:00 mark, the talk about always having to make the first move in romance, even as an adolescent, it's a lot of pressure and really is tough on boys trying to figure out dating. This is the fist time I've ever seen that thought occur to a woman. As the kids say, im feeling so seen.

Let them wrestle. Let them express themselves to their peers. Let them see how big a ramp they can jump with their bike. Don't freak out when they kiss a girl. Teach them empathy if it doesn't come natural to them. Show them that what they do makes other people feel some kind of way. Don't shame them for having urges and desires... show them how to express those feelings without hurting someone else.

I went to an all boy school and sadly it was one of the worst things for me. As a young shy artistic boy the environment provided few opportunities to help me grow and gain confidence. For some classmates it was clearly the perfect place. My advice is know your child before making this decision.

i can't believe this woman is kind of shocked to discover this. men have always been emotional, but we've been being told to shut up for the last 40 years.

Thank you so much for this conversation!! In my opinion, this is very important today. But how difficult it is to save boys from toxic masculinity at home when almost all of pop culture is saturated with toxic masculinity. Rap music, sports, and cinema have absorbed toxic images of tough guys with muscles, guns, and cool cars. And teenagers see all this every day.

Great interview.

I love that people are discussing this. I still haven’t heard some sort of underlying cause that would offer a solution. It’s hard as a young woman to empathize with young men but I can see that there’s a disconnect. I hear their concerns and I see the effect on their lives. I’m just at a loss honestly. As a 5th grader we start developing breasts and getting harassed by grown men. We’re told this is going to keep happening and to cover up and protect ourselves. Then the boys pull our hair and snap our bras and we’re told it’s going to keep happening it means he likes you. We’re teens and the boys are yelling at us for not liking them back. Our bodies are being photoshopped onto porn stars. Photos are being taken of us at parties. The photos we take ourselves. All uploaded into a shared Dropbox that the boys look at. And it’s complicated because we’re attracted to them anyways. And we go to college and it’s the same problems. No flirty texts or courting just “send nudes” “show me your boobs” “anal?”. Carrying your girls out of parties that they got roofied at praying they’re not dead. As an adult wanting a partner and getting met with a child instead. Men that are afraid to talk to women because they say they don’t know when a woman isn’t interested in them. Men that refuse to celebrate holidays or go on traditional dates because they think it’s a scam. It’s just nice to feel celebrated and courted. The women in my life asking their fiancées to put equal effort into making the house run or little sweet surprises that make your partner feel loved and meeting a wall. And they’re men whose character we believe in! I want to understand where they’re coming from but I just see the women in my life burning out from all the effort and the men just stuck? They’re angry because they don’t want to feel lumped in with the awful boys from our past. And yet are not stepping forward to show how they’re better? Not taking care of themselves or investing in themselves in fundamental ways? It feels like there’s a chasm between young men and women that everyone wants to fix but no one knows how. Women, how do you fully embrace a gender you have to protect yourself from? Men, how do you build solid relationships with a gender you never learned to interact with as a whole person?

When I was in high school, and in college, in the early 2000s, long before Me Too, I started noticing that if you made inappropriate comments to or around girls (nothing terribly inappropriate), their reactions increasingly changed from, “you’re being immature” to “you’re a rapist!” So I think part of it is how teenage girls and women started hearing or learning some strange new way of communicating and I don’t know where it comes from.

I needed to hear this my son has complained to me that boys and men have emotional feelings too. However he express that boys and men can’t explain their feeling like women. Thank you, for this interview.❤

This is what men, and women, need to be: MATURE WITH GOOD SELF ESTEEM. Take responsibility for themselves and their choices, which is part of both being mature and having good self esteem. Be kind to others and never hurt anyone intentionally, make an effort not to hurt them accidentally (also related to both things). Be thoughtful about your choices, be thoughtful of others (also related). That leaves a huge amount of space to be who you are while also being a decent human being who others might be attracted to and want to stay with after getting to know you.

Everything you say is true… I raised my 3 boys in the late 80s and 90s… they suffered all the same issues. Their father was clueless how to parent them, so they were flailing. And boys feelings are very under nurtured. Girls are given a free pass for bad behavior, boys are NOT.

This seems a lot like feminist conversations in the 70s and 90s about how patriarchy impacts boys/men and the need to support them in being more sensitive and emotional. The point about different foetal brain development is really interesting. Thank you!

What women need to realize is that the me-too movement has profoundly changed the dynamics of courtship and dating. Women have to play a more active role. Not sitting back and waiting to be approached.

6:31 no judgment- math question- if girls are going to college to meet partners… what happens to non-college girls and the left behind failures? I was told something from my guidance counselor about barefoot and pregnant because of my unstable home life and inability to keep up with advanced education coursework/homework. I worked to no advancement and now I’m post-menopausal.

Thank you!!! Cannot wait to read this. I have two boys and so much of this I have been waiting for someone to say.

As a married man who grew up just before ultra feminism took off in the 2000s, I am grateful I had older family members who steered me away from this destructive ideology. I knew so many guys who became emasculated and miserable due to buying into it. I feel bad for her children since she admits her ideology is harmful to them and yet still calls herself a feminist.

Failing to launch. A good concept to think about.

Fascinating.

hummm....the only shortfall in this interview is how it began - the interviewee following the lead of the interviewer that " I wrote the book that I wanted to read". Toni Morrison said that in the context of a fictional, literary work. For someone writing on a topic that falls squarely into the social sciences, that may raise serious questions about the quality of the findings in that in analysing the data she gathered, the writer may have been looking for things that fit her perspectives/ideas and narrative. Besides that, I do think that she has presented some valuable insights but she should be very mindful of the questions she is asked.

I feel so sorry for these boys. ☹

Very good.

deficient parenting seems to be the key, not cultural forces. this book is a self-care book for her.