A French view of The Myth of Male Power

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:09]Clubament the masculineist.

[00:00:29]Um, extremist Marxist auto feminism liberal feminist now organization for women.

[00:01:36]forcul.

[00:02:06]Rolemate to soulmate.

[00:02:10]The boys crisis.

[00:02:24]this book in your new book in the boy crisis and I would certainly recommend people who are interested in this sort of thing to go out and pick it up. It's full of facts and it's concentrating on something that's of crucial importance.

[00:02:52]masculine.

[00:03:06]forch.

[00:04:02]Good afternoon. So dear listeners, we are so happy to introduce you Dr. Fowler, the author uh of our book, our our the author of the next book. We will um send you the myth of male power, one of the four books we are pre-selling on this cycle about heroism. Dr. We are so happy to have you on to have this discussion with you today. Um you are a hero of uh the free speech of the free thought. You are really one of the those figures who inspired us to do what we are doing today at Karma. Um and um yes we are so glad to have this conversation with you because also it's the fifth anniversary of uh this small publishing book and uh and your book will cross the threshold of 10 books published by karma in in so Dr. Um um let's you have been born during the Second World War and you have a lot of things to tell us about feminism, masculinism, male issues. Um first of all, okay, I want to reassure our audience. You are from a scientific background. No. So you you what you first no you you studied political science in the in the 60s. So can you tell us a little bit about um your background education? How and what what events in your life brought you to this career?

[00:05:56]>> Yes. Um my PhD is in political science from New York University and um when I was attending New York University uh the feminist movement um surfaced and I took an interest in it and changed my doctoral dissertation to a very scientific dissertation on measuring how much attitudes and behaviors could change when exposed to feminist lit literature. And then I also put um created some men's groups and saw how much attitudes and behaviors changed or didn't change when people joined men's groups. One of those people who joined one of the men's groups whose life was changed very significantly um was a fellow named John Lennon um who um I didn't even know he had joined the group. I he joined right after I formed it and taught the group how to sort of run itself. Um but it uh led him to um taking off five years to raise his son um so that he could um because he had missed the experience of of raising his son u when he was his first son and he felt very um felt very disappointed about that. So anyway, um I I deeply got involved in the political science of um of feminism and um and and join and then joined the board of directors of the national organization for women in New York City and was um I guess became the only man ever elected three times to the board of now in New York City and then started speaking all around the world on feminist issues and the importance of feminism. And it was actually one time when I was in Japan when a woman came up to a teacher, a female teacher u came up to me after one of my um um speaking engagements and said to me, you know, really fascinated, you know, by what you said about um women and feminism, but in my personal class uh the boys are having more problems than the girls. And then I heard the same thing about this from when I was speaking in Australia and then Canada. And then my sister mentioned that you know when boy she was a teacher my sister and um and she said when some of the boys in her class um when their parents got divorced uh they started doing much worse than they had been before. And I started looking into what was happening there. And usually it meant that the uh the boys did not uh the father had left the home or and not been allowed to be equally involved with the children and the boys felt sort of lost and they didn't have any postponed gratification. They started doing very poorly in school. And so all of this came together to um be part of my early um sort of involvement with feminism.

[00:08:42]And I was, you know, very strong supporter and I still am a very strong supporter of anytime any efforts to empower women um have my 100% support.

[00:08:53]But unfortunately, feminism went from I am woman, I am strong to I am woman, I've been wronged and fe and men have wronged me. Um and um and I am a victim.

[00:09:05]And uh that um and I don't think vict I think victim power can be very effective because um when you blame men people are fine about you're blaming men and they it makes you seem get gives you more political power but it doesn't give you more respect and it doesn't empower you as a woman and for women to be truly empowered um it's it's not good to rely on victim power. it's good to rely on your own um your own power and working with men rather than against men.

[00:09:40]>> Back in the 60s and 70s, if I recall, uh it was the second wave feminism. Uh and it was mostly centered around issues like abortion rights, uh possibly everything related to couples and power dynamic inside the couples and intimacy.

[00:09:59]Um, how did it go from there to uh switching to issues about uh power dynamics in general with the idea that men wronged women uh for the last century or so?

[00:10:13]>> Well, there were two parts of the feminist movement even right from the very beginning in the United States. Uh one was the Betty Fredan's feminine mystique which was sort of catapulted secondwave feminism in the United States and then ultimately around the world.

[00:10:28]And she and I agreed almost, you know, word for word. She was uh I I think the best way to understand Betty Ferdan was by her second book in 1981 called the second stage. And she made it Betty Fredana made it very clear that there w that that women's roles were restricted but that we also so but men's roles were also restricted and confined and that the feminist movement would not be really the optimal movement if we didn't go have a second stage of the feminist movement which was freeing men from their restrictive roles. So that was Betty Fredan on the one hand and um and then and then on the other hand was Gloria Steinum. Um and Gloria was very much big into the patriarchy. Um saying the patriarchy um controls the the world and controls women and um and is particularly um controls tries tries to control female reproduction um by not allowing abortions and things like that.

[00:11:31]And so um and and the patriarchy was about was a system which was designed to benefit men at the expense of women. And that was very different than my perspective and very different than Betty Ferdan's perspective. However, um Gloria Steinum's perspective was the one that was very much more Marxist in orientation and the Marxism was very anti-family. It believed that the family was an instrument of the patriarchy designed to oppress women um and to benefit men. And so um I didn't see it that way at all. Um I saw that um historically speaking uh the the issue was not patriarchy. The issue was, if you if you'd like to call it survival ary, meaning that what controlled both sexes historically, was was um both sexes had obligations and responsibilities and roles that they played in order to survive. Um, I remember um on a more personal level um when I first wrote when I was writing a book in high school and my and my father sort of saw that the the author inside of me and he said um you know Warren it's really nice that you're sort of a good writer but um you know only about one out of a hundred um authors even get published and if you can't find a publisher you'll never find a wife. Um, and because >> basically it doesn't pay the bills.

[00:13:07]>> It doesn't pay the bills. Exactly. It's like really nice to be an artist or writer, an actor, you know, but that doesn't pay the bills. And if you don't if you can't pay the bills, you'll never be able to support a family and no woman will be interested in you. And so that was sort of the beginning of when I when I began to learn uh that uh and you know when it when it came to things like rights. My father would say don't use the word rights. Nobody has rights. Everybody has when you grow up you have two things. You have responsibilities and you have obligations and you don't have rights. Um rights are for children. You know rights are child talk. And so um what I started to realize was that historically speaking neither sex had rights. Both sexes had responsibilities and obligations. And women had the responsibilities of of risking their life bearing children and spending their life raising children.

[00:14:07]Men risked their life in war and risk their life in the hazardous jobs and they spent their life um uh raising money. And so if you were a man who was um sort of a nurturer, protector type, nurturer, caring type of man, was very feeling in your orientation um and you were really good with children, there was no opportunity for you to people didn't say, "Oh, you're the type of man who's good with children, so you should have the right to spend your life raising children uh full-time, and a woman will be attracted to you because you're going to say that you're going to be a full-time dad." So women were not attracted to full-time dads and men didn't expect women to enter into being CEOs or things like that. Both sexes had their roles. Um and those roles were restricted not just for women, they were restricted for men as well.

[00:15:01]>> Yeah. So yeah, I mean that's we have jumped directly in the in the themes of of the book we we will be translating and publishing. Uh I'm happy but I wanted just to pause a moment for to explain to our uh audience uh okay the so the national organization for women in the United States was a liberal organization okay it was not a Marxist one so it was basically it was fighting for equal rights and um yeah Betty Frieden our listeners could um okay if they don't know who she was okay in France we have translated one book of her the first one like the feminist mystic uh which is called in in France laier um and it's uh and I think uh yeah definitely the second book has not been translated actually yet maybe we we will do that one day but it hasn't been it has never been translated the second book the one you just spoke about and it's very interesting for our audience to remember that I talked in the in the preface of last book we published sexual desire by by Roger Scrutin. Uh in the preface I told I ever I about this meeting between Freeden and the Bvoir uh in in 1975, a very famous meeting because u ba was actually arguing with her Mauist mindset that basically women should be forbidden to stay at home and to raise children. And uh BA was basically advocating a destruction of any role of any kind in a in a very Chinese revolution way of thinking. And Freden was kind of I mean flabbergasted at that statement and she came back to the US very very shaken by by that that encounter. But it was but still in France this this train of thought has gone be has become also the main train of thought the I mean the destructive feminism has become the main feminism as well as you so unfortunately not Betty Friedan and not your I mean your moderate um trend that has won the cultural war for the moment.

[00:17:27]Um so yes just to explain yeah the situation in France and to situate beauty free then you're so you yeah um Dr. profile was part of the board. Okay.

[00:17:39]The board of of of now. So, National Organization for Women. So, you you were elected and you you fought for okay the betterment of of of the women condition uh but not for the feminist supremacism.

[00:17:54]Like I at some point you realized that it was not more about equality but it was more about getting power more power.

[00:18:01]No.

[00:18:02]>> Yes. Unfortunately, the Betty Fredane feminine mystique orientation was very much, you know, sort of like free both sexes. She put the emphasis on on women.

[00:18:12]Um, but she was very open to men being freer in their roles as well. Um, nobody moved quite to the level of uh what I what I was saying is that there doesn't there shouldn't be a woman's movement or a men's movement. There should be a gender liberation movement. that the job is that um that we should be celebrating the fact that we that this this movement this possibility of freeing each other from every everybody from their rigid roles. This was possible only in wealthier nations, only in the middle and upper middle class. Because what was taken care of in wealthier nations, in the middle and upper middle class, was one thing, the need to survive. And to survive, it was helpful for both sexes to have rigid roles because the only thing you were caring about was just living, being able to live. But as you were able to live, you started to ask, you started to up your expectations. You wanted freedom. And so what the what the misinterpretation of feminist was was that the only sex that was prevented from being free was women. Um but in fact neither sex was free. Um um women were restricted to the roles that I mentioned and men were restricted to those roles, but nobody was saying that.

[00:19:39]And I was saying that um and Betty was sort of like a you know slower on that on that part of it until she wrote the second stage. U but she uh but but nevertheless um for me it was trying to educate the the world to the degree that I could reach it. uh that both sexes um that there were a lot of uh so for example when's a major research center called the Pew Pew research center um interviewed men who were full-time workers and they asked men who worked full-time if you had your choice would you prefer to work full-time or be with your children full-time and 49% of the men who were working full-time who had children said they would prefer to be full-time with their children. Well, that question until recently was never even asked of men. So, it was not until about eight, nine years ago that that question was asked of men that um people opened up the door and said, "If by the way, would you consider yourself um more happy to to be that way?" And so what nobody was asking um and so we were not asking men what would you like to do? We were only asking women what you like to do and then saying that men are preventing you from doing that um if you wanted to be a CEO or break the glass ceiling. But at the same time nobody was saying to to men what would you like to do? And to to this day, now that many women are earning more than men in the United States and in many other industrialized countries, uh those women still have very little interest in marrying men who earn less than they do.

[00:21:28]Um and so and that is one of the the the things that we need to confront is the sexism of women. uh that when they do earn money that what they really want from men is making sure that they earn as much or more. Uh that is really the ultimate um objectification of men >> because you you coined a very nice uh expression to describe uh this way of considering men. You called them like success objects >> uh like like symmetrical to like sexual objects for women. It was like success objects. This this you you also you always apply this this symmetry because one of your know one of the main the main exercise you actually I think from the 60s till now you're doing with in your in your workshops is like this gender reversal. No things you always work with this. No I I beauty contest there's a yes I'll share a little bit about the men's beauty contest. So when I first started when I was on when I was elected to the board of now I started um in New York City they um got me to be speaking all around the world on feminist issues and so and then sometimes I'd return to the same place a few years later and I'd ask people um you know and people would say oh your speech was so great and I'd say well what did you get from my speech what changed in your life from my presentation and everybody started stumbling and they couldn't tell me anything that had changed in their life as a result of my presentation most of the time. And so um so I said it's not good enough to be complimenting me. I if your life hasn't been improved as a result of my presentations, then why am I even speaking? Um and so I started then to create um ways of getting men and women to walk a mile in each other's um shoes, if you will.

[00:23:30]So I said I said to my audiences um you know every woman is in a beauty contest every day of her life. Um if you are a man here listening to my presentation. I don't want you just to listen to my words. I'd like to invite you to participate in the beauty contest of everyday life that women participate in.

[00:23:51]So I'd invite all the men up to the stage and into the aisles. Um and and I encourage the women to look over the men like um from a sexual desire type of perspective and to shout what they which w men they like best and if they like their rear or whatever to say, "Oh, a great rear," etc. And then um and so the wi the the women did this and um and the men were um competing to be one of the six finalists in the in the beauty contest of every of everyday life that women go through. And so at the end of the process, the men would say to me things like, you know, this is really weird because I was feeling like I was valued for nothing but my body, but yet I was up there trying to get attention for my body. So, I was blaming women for paying attention to me for something that um that I was sort of helping to trying to compete to be the best of. And the and and so I feel like this hypocrite, you know, doing this and the women started applauding and saying, "Yes, this is exactly the way we feel." You know, on the one hand, we're trying to get attention for our bodies. On the other hand, we feel angry that the only thing we're looked at for is our bodies and we're not asked about our values, our thoughts, our ideas, and we're not respected for that way. So then I said, "Okay, now the men have experienced the beauty contest of everyday life that that the women go through. I want the women to experience the the contest of everyday life that that men go through, which is being a success object." So, I had all of the women sit according to how much they um either made or expected that they would be making five years from now if they were college students.

[00:25:43]Um, and the ones that were expecting themselves like to be medical doctors or lawyers, they sat in the first rows. The the ones that were expected to be um artists or writers, they sat in the the back rows. Um, and the so then I had all the men look at the women and say, "Okay, now I'm going to ask you to make believe that your role is going to be to raise children full-time. Uh, do you want um but and you want those children to go to good schools and um and live in therefore live in good neighborhoods.

[00:26:14]So, if you choose a woman from the first rows, the chances are fairly good she'll earn enough money to be able to to to have you be able to go to great schools and so on. If you choose a woman in the back rows, the chances are good that you will not be really able to give your children the best opportunities in life that are that are um possible. So the women in the back rows were usually the more attractive women. Um but interestingly u but the so I had to really work hard to get the wh the men to focus on the women in the front rows.

[00:26:46]Um, and so I said, "Okay, women, your job is to ask out the guy you're most attracted to physically, which were usually the guys that had been the six finalists in the beauty contest." And so the women event, so I had to really work hard to get the women to do to come up and to ask out the men that they were most attracted to. But eventually they tried to do that. But the w the guys that had won the beauty contests or the the six finalists usually had about 11 or 12 women competing to have them come out uh for them. And so the women so at the end of the process the women said gee this is incredible. What's happened to me is that that I started to say to the the guys like I really want you to come out to this restaurant um with me this evening. I'll pick you up in my Porsche. Um and um you know and and I don't have a Porsche. I can't afford the best restaurant. Um but I I found myself sort of exaggerating what I could do and what I had because I didn't want to be rejected. And so that usually and a number of women said, "Well, you know, that got me down to a certain extent, but I still had a couple of women competing with me. So I took a guy just by the arm and I pulled him away from the other women." And you know, like if a guy did that to me, I'd call him a jerk and I' I'd say this is sexual harassment. And here, they would say up until this point in my life, every time I've used the word jerk, uh what I've you that's referred to a man, but today I was the jerk when I was playing the male role and trying to get the men to come out with me and exaggerating who I was, exaggerating what I had, exaggerating what I could pay. And then the nerve of me, I took him by the arm and pulled him physically away from the other women. Um, if a man had done that to me, I really would have been angry.

[00:28:42]And yet I was doing that to a guy. Um, and so it was like that. And so from those experiences, I have men come up to me today that I meet places that did this experience 30, 40 years ago um and still remember that that experience of walking a mile in each other's moccasins. And so that's that began my life where I eventually moved into um training people to uh in couples communication and teaching people how to hear personal criticism without becoming defensive, a book you'll be publishing called Rolemate to Soulmate that I have in the picture over on the back wall there. Um that that got me to realizing um how could I get both sexes to hear each other? And I eventually developed a way of being able to get both sexes to hear personal criticism from their partner without becoming defensive. And that is biologically unnatural to do. Uh but that was the beginning of the process of my um moving toward discovering how to do that.

[00:29:48]when I read your your uh book introduction uh and uh because actually you made a forward uh to explain the book about 25 years after it was first published and so it was kind of eyeopening because uh it was almost like uh getting uh the first recall you had in the early '9s about this era and then 25 years later uh and a lot of changes have happened in between. And to me, I'm actually a lot younger than you are. I'm uh in my early 30s. And uh to me, it's it sounds >> Oh, wait.

[00:30:33]>> It almost sounds like this era was too good to be true. To be honest, I it seems like people were genuinely interested in uh feeling the perspective of the other gender and having this mutual understanding of uh how it was to be a man or a woman. Uh whereas now it seems that it's more um like a a battle basically. It's a a war and there is a great divide and people don't talk too much uh about the others perspective.

[00:31:07]They just self-center in their own perspective and they only follow on social media the accounts of men if they are men or of women if they are women.

[00:31:18]um h how how did we go from this era of uh mutual interest and curiosity to something more along the lines of warship basically?

[00:31:29]>> Well, I think yes, first of all, you're right and second, it's deeply deeply sad. Um and certainly I think you know part of it is you know AI and the um and the social media and the fact that you know that when when you have when you when you tap into a perspective you're fed more of that perspective and then you're fed even more of it and before you know it you think that's the only perspective. And so that's certainly been part of it and that I think has fed the um the enormous gap between the the left and the right. Um, and in the United States, you know, um, people like myself who were classic liberals, what we call classic liberals, will say things like, "I haven't left the left, but the left has left me." Um, and some some of the people on the far right feel the same type of way. And so we have people completely not listening to each other and hearing perspectives that were um, you know, that are only their perspectives. Now in the coup's communication work that I workshops that I do um there there's a mutual interest in both the mana usually it's the man and the woman but as you probably know the divorce rate is much higher among gay women than it is among gay men and it's much higher among gay women than it is among heterosexuals. Um so >> and same for violence if I recall.

[00:32:50]>> Uh yes domestic violence I think is slightly higher among um gay women than it is among heterosexuals. And most people don't know that among heterosexuals um men and women um hit each other at every level of violence about equally um except young women now today who are dating in their 18 to 22 or three year old category. Uh those young women are much more likely to hit men than the men are to hit women. Um but so that's a little bit of a different issue there. But in the coup's communication workshops, the the couples um have an incentive to hear uh to to learn how to get along with the other sex or with the same sex if they're if they're gay as gay. And the um and so with that incentive I can train people how to hear how to overcome the single biggest challenge his and the single biggest challenge is that historically speaking when somebody was criticized it was a potential enemy.

[00:33:57]So it was functional for survival to kill the enemy before the enemy killed you or at least not listen to the enemy because you um at least to get up your defenses. So historically speaking when you heard criticism it was functional for survival to be defensive. Um but it's it's not functional for love to be defensive. What's functional for love is to be able to listen to criticism and associate criticism with an opportunity to be um to be loved. But that requires an evolutionary shift. And the key part of that evolutionary shift is training people to alter the biologically natural mindset from defensiveness to an association of your partner's criticism with your with letting your partner know that no matter what she or he says, no matter how distorted it is, no matter how angry it is, that if you're able to really take that in as your partner's story, as the part the story of the person you love, that your partner will feel more loved by you and more secure with you and therefore love you more.

[00:35:07]And so there's an enormous incentive to listen to your partner. Normally speaking, the only people that listen to you was were God. Um and so people fell in love with their God uh because they felt God listened. Or today it's your AI bot um who listens to you and you so people fall in love with their AI bot.

[00:35:29]But the core, the common denominator is the enormous need that we have as human beings to be heard in a way that represents our way of of of of speaking up. And if we can move in that direction, that will that will be more likely to save all human beings from destroying each other than any other single thing. No, it's it's very beautiful what you said and I I loved Okay, now you're speaking about the book we will do next year like the rolemate and soulmate.

[00:36:05]uh and the stress you put in in this book on discipline and art of love and then more like which actually for our listeners and readers links your work to the work of Roger Scrutin we just published and of the idea that that um love uh is not something that occurs in a passive way but has to be um guided uh in intellig intelligently and willfully um towards a mutal benefit. And it cannot happen just by mere chance. But uh it happens because we we go contrary to our some primitive reflexes to to hide to counterattack and to also to shield our no our nucleus of of self-worth also. This is I think this is where your work is linked with Becker's work with the thing the two books we are publishing next month hopefully about the denial of death and the birth and that of meaning where the core concept of baker is the self self-worth it's a very important um self-esteem and and the defense of the self-esteem it's um paramount for any any human being so your work is definitely linked to to I mean the work of of that great anthropologist and um you have the same insight. So that's why I'm so happy to bring together basically this uh those books and to to to to show I mean on the same subjects great minds uh being more more or less alike but in a different in a different ways. But I want to go back to because we we keep on avoiding uh the myth of of male power and we're keeping avoiding the the I mean the scandal. And we're keeping avoiding the fact that basically you go against some some pits of the day. some very I mean some uh uh I mean very prejudices of the day that basically no u males had the power have oppressed women since uh nandal times and uh uh basically they are victims forever and we have to pay we men have to pay and um so you What I have to make a confession. I when I I read your book of course it was after um a very a very complicated as you said relationship. So I had my aha moment when I I read your book and several others. But uh and yours of course was very important for me to to understand my situation because I was not a very good success object and uh uh and and and I and I thought a kind of relationship would would work without me being a very good success object. I was quite conscious of of that thing but I thought I had found a woman who actually would not want a success object and basically okay but then you also have some peer pressure family pressure okay I know I'm it's not that also her decision sometimes also the others say like oh but you oh you are with that guy you could have been with that guy and that guy and you know this kind of thing and anyway it it happened um a long time ago and it was a very of course something that um made me uh what I am today and so I'm kind of happy it happened but on the moment it hurts like no the free like truth will set you free but first it's going to piss you off it's going to be like that so it did the same for me and yeah one of the key concepts also for you that open my eyes and I think for our readers that's why we wanted to do this book is that basically you explain that men uh have been the disposable sex. Could you elaborate more about that please for our audience?

[00:40:28]>> Yes, if you think about that um men have been trained to be what I call the disposable sex in two ways. One is they're the ones that are drafted into war and um and lose their life in war.

[00:40:43]And uh in the United States and in France, we would be speaking u German under Hitler type of um orientation today if it wasn't for men being willing to die and to protect the country and to protect women and children and everybody that's growing up today. And so a couple of days ago we had Memorial Day um in the United States um to to memorialize the the men who did this. as a rule. um we um have that was our the expectation that when so when a when a a a boy was and so in order to so the other I'll go first the other part the other the other is in hazardous jobs that 93% of the hazardous jobs uh the people in hazardous jobs are males and so when people live in a home just think about the home you're living in now that if you're listening to this u you're living in a home that was built by um probably lumber and the lumberjacks are one of the um most likely to be killed um um professionals. And that lumberjack um was are the lumberjacks are almost all males who cut down the timber to uh and then that timber goes on to um a long distance trucker um who uh takes it across country to bring it to a construction site. that long-distance trucking is also among the most hazardous jobs that exist. Um those uh the 80,000 um pound um trucks um and cannot stop very easily and they often have accidents and people are often killed in them especially when they have to drive at night in the fog and so on.

[00:42:26]So that lumber that your house is built with are built by people who are willing to risk their lives um in order to earn some money to be able to build the home that you're living in right now. And then the construction workers in the United Sta uh who built that home in the United States, those construction workers, one dies every eight hours in the work in the workplace. Um and other many others fall off ladders or fall off roofs and are are um injured and are not able to to work again. Um and so these are people who um who are risking their lives as being part of the disposable sex. And um if if you are turning on your electricity in your home or you're um or you're looking in your teeth um the both the electricity and the and what's in your teeth are made by is made by miners and miners also die at very high rates. And there are also almost all men. And um when you um if and in in the old days when there was much more coal mining than there was um men um trained themselves and their sons to go into coal mines, they usually died much sooner than they otherwise would have from black lung disease and um or they were firefighters and in the United States most of the firefighters are volunteers. And so >> in France as well in France as well.

[00:43:53]>> In France as well. Yes. And so and so just think about that. Um a volunteer firefighter when you're exposing yourself to the poisons from u that we now know um um are likely to kill kill you much sooner. I had a a housekeeper at one point in California and her husband was a firefighter at the age of 50. Um her h uh her husband died um and you know from from the the the the disease that that he got from all the toxins from the fire from from fire fire to sort of think of men being willing to die without even being paid for it. Why do we do that? Because we want to be admired. We want to be respected. And so we oftenimes look at men and women and say, "Well, women are into caring and into relationships. Men are into success and achievement."

[00:44:49]I really want everyone who's listening to really hear this.

[00:44:54]Men are not into success and achievement. They're into being loved.

[00:45:00]But we feel we can't be loved unless we're successful and unless we achieve.

[00:45:06]>> And and our goal is to be loved. Just like your goal is to be loved and respected. But we feel we can't get there unless we are taking these risks of the volunteer firefighter of being willing to to work in the mines, being willing to work as lumberjacks or be or going to war. And so that creates an enormous amount of complexities in human beings that I'll be happy to elaborate on if you wish.

[00:45:39]just to bring maybe a couple of uh data points from France uh so that our audience doesn't think this is just an American issue. It has nothing to do with us. Uh according to the official figures uh about 1,300 uh people die uh during their shift at work. Uh out of them about 95% are men in France. And this is just to give a a comparison point uh about 10 times more than the amount of uh women that are killed by their husband. And we hear a lot about uh uh intimate violence, women violence, women being victims of violence in France. And we actually never hear about uh people being killed uh on their construction site or during their shift or whatever. So it's interesting to bring this amounts to compare.

[00:46:43]>> Yes, the the the data very interestingly pretty much is very similar all around the world. all around the world that men do the hazardous jobs. And it's also, you know, one of one of the really major damages that the feminist movement has done that I do talk about in the myth of male power is the damage of framing domestic violence as largely maleto female. Um there's more than 200 studies now that have been done looking at male to female and female to-male domestic violence. all 200 of the studies and to the credit of some feminists um when the first studies came out and showed that men and women hit each other about equally and punched each other about equally and um threw you know threw things at each other about equally and um you know um severely damaged each other about equally and killed each other about equally. When these when this data first came out almost all the feminists said that no way men are far more violent toward women than the other way around. Now, a lot of those feminists, almost all those feminists were women who did who replicated those studies, and every single one of them found out pretty much the same thing that men and women hit each other about equally. The difference is that men don't report it. Um, and men and men are more likely to be hit by a woman when they're asleep and with a pan or with an object. So, the methods of hurting each other are different. Um but the levels of violence and the levels of people hurt are very much the same. Now the importance of that piece of information is that once you know that both sexes hit each other and are hurt by the other one about equally then the present method that we use which is to have shelters for women and then those shelters for women are supervised by feminists who tell the women never return to that abuser because once an abuser always an abuser and so therefore but most of the women do return to their their partner who abused them because they also love that partner. Um but so but what could have replaced that if we understood domestic violence was about equal is is teaching both sexes how to hear each other. Can you have you ever heard of anyone who felt listened to who then slapped or hit the person who was listening to them?

[00:49:17]What we would have done much better as feminists would have been to teach each person in the relationship how to hear each other in a way that allowed them to express themselves fully and that allowed the person who was speaking to be listened to because people who are being listened to never slap, hit or punch the person who was listening to them. And so what we what we did is created a major crime. We perpetuated domestic violence against both women and men by not understanding that it is a two-way street. And the solution is not preventing the couple from getting back together again. It's the solution is teaching that couple how to hear each other.

[00:50:08]Maybe maybe because the the point was not the point was not to get people to be happy and uh and the the point of being an activist was to keep the problem going and not to solve it. If I think there's a problem with any kind of activism, no, it's if if if the problem is solved, they they lose the the the existence. So this a kind of a perverted mechanism that keeps them going. Um I wanted to share with you and because we have translated that karma one book by him I just stumbled up a quote from Chesterton and I I and this quote I mean it fits perfectly in what you uh you described. He said about about this disposable sex about men. The soldier in all ages has been regarded as a man in so very extraordinary opposition that a particular glory surrounded him because he had to endure it for a desperate need of the commonwealth. He is a sort of a splendid slave. The nation which takes away from him the most ordinary human rights tries to give him as some sort of compensation the military legend.

[00:51:37]Take that away and he would be strictly a slave.

[00:51:42]>> Yeah. Exactly. The the very process of being a man uh was to be disposable was basically the same as being a slave.

[00:51:52]Absolutely. And um even to this day in in much more subtle types of ways um you know we many many people I I'll say something like um um we we've heard expressions like um u if mama ain't happy nobody's happy or happy wife happy life. I remember once I was um at a at a a party and um and um and I said um happy wife, happy life and u every every guy there rolled his eyes and like yes that's for sure and the and the women said smart man and the it was not like the women disagreed with me and I remember a couple of women said you know you listen to him sweetie he's a relationship expert was And so, you know, here we are talking about male dominance when we really know that in in everyday life. It's mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, and a happy wife, happy life. And we all want to be happy. And we we we recognize that. Um, and you know, just there's so many things that happen that I talk about in the myth of male power around these issues. Uh, one of one of which is like, you know, every day when we're walking if um when when a man and woman are walking together on the street, um, if if something were to happen that was would threaten them, uh, the almost always the man would reach out and try to risk his life to protect the woman.

[00:53:21]Um, and um, and you know, or if somebody is hurt on the street, it's, you know, almost everybody that risks their life to to help somebody that's hurt is is a man. And um and so but it's also important to understand that there's um that there's a what happens as a result of men being disposable is um is very dangerous to men. So for example, let's say um you're you're training for for war. you go to boot camp um which is the first level of training and I don't know if you call it boot camp in France um but it's the you know the when you it's the first level of training and you have somebody like a sergeant um um training you and if somebody makes if the sergeant makes a very let's say you're Jewish and you um and the sergeant makes an anti-semitic comment and you say excuse me sergeant sir but um you know that was an anti-semitic comment I and I'm Jewish I'm really I I was hurt by that. The sergeant, what would he do? Um, he would laugh at you, tell you to do 20 push-ups. Why would he do that? Be so so so inscent sensitive because your job in that early training is to be a cog in the war machine. And if you're if you have a squeaky if the war machine has a squeaky wheel that's complaining, it doesn't work as well. Your job is to train yourself to die, to train yourself to be disposable. And so therefore, you learn, and this is the key point here, you learn to keep your feelings to yourself because your feelings do not matter. No, it's worse than that. Your feelings do matter. If your feelings are expressed, you will lose the respect of other men and you will res and if your vulnerabilities are expressed, you will lose the respect of women.

[00:55:29]Many women say to men, I like a vulnerable man. But the moment they are vulnerable, she tends to really vulnerable, she tends to lose respect from for them without even wanting to do that. Um but it's so deeply built into our biology. And so uh this idea of male privilege um and male power is just really very erroneous. When I talk about male power, I I say male power is about control over power should be the real power is about control over your life.

[00:56:08]Uh when you learn to be a male, you don't learn to be have control over your life. You learn to earn money that often somebody else spends while you die sooner.

[00:56:21]That's not control over your life. It's a type of being a type of slave to the need to earn money. It's why in Japan they have a game called Kroshi. Kroshi is a Japanese word for for death at the desk or death from overwork. And they have a game where the um person who wins the game um he um he's the one that climbs up a corporate ladder or climbs up a religious ladder, becomes a pope or wins at the pope game, the corporate game, the government game, becomes president or premere of the country. And when they get to the top of that ladder, they commit suicide. Not in real life, but in the game. And what's the reason they commit suicide? because there's an understanding from kroshi which means death at the desk or death from overwork and the process of working to get to the top of a ladder you usually give up your life. Um you and so you you become a human doing not a human being and because you unbecome a human being you basically have committed suicide to your real self.

[00:57:30]Yeah, that's let's very much link for for our audience is very much linked to what you just said uh with the analysis of of becker analysis in both birth and death meaning a denial of death because the denial of death is actually what you you described is that the the difference between a social role which is imposed upon a male and his individuality which with all the potential uh he has basically to dissimulate or to repress uh in order just to fit in some kind of of role that would bring him some sort of success. Um okay this is called know like in old days it was called alienation. No this is the alienation. um the the fact that you have to play a role which basically negates uh your individuality and your potentiality and so this yes this is one one thing I mean Becker speaks a lot very well about that's why I think it's very complimentary with the the myth of male power I mean Beck agrees the grammar of what you are just explaining more precisely about the gender roles and what I loved about the book is basically you said that what what's the I mean eye opener is was like you said okay women liberation was what speaking about betetty freedom okay the the problem that has no name it was that okay women were stuck in their role and that and they felt without knowing what was going. Okay, it was not enough. Okay. What I basically summarize what what Betty Frerieden said in the program that has no name was that it was okay. The role the social role of being a housewife of being a a good a good loving partner to my to to my husband is not enough for being fulfilled. And she's so basically the liberation was the liberation from the role that the society imposed on women.

[00:59:52]the role of being a a good wife, of being a a good cook, being a good mother. So this was the women's liberation. They could be okay whatever they wanted. But you said in in symmetrically there was no liberation for males from their role as success objects of anyway. There was no thinking about symmetrically. Okay, we we liberate the women of their role. Okay, very well. What do we do about men? How do can men be uh I mean free? I mean accepted in in that sense. Free in a sense. Okay. Of course they are technically always free. But uh will they be accepted of not looking for being for for becoming uh a success object in a sense?

[01:00:44]>> Yes.

[01:00:44]>> So that's am I summarizing well the core of your >> Yes. very very important and and it's really important to understand that that when men are to men's role has a different trick to it. Um that that in or so we both we all want to be loved but what to be a hero and repress your feelings means you're basically unlovable because people need to be able to hear your real feelings in order to really love you. Otherwise, they're just loving the money that you produce. Um, and so it's it's a very so so the for men there's a g there's a tension between heroic intelligence and health intelligence.

[01:01:31]And so to be emotionally healthy, you have to be able to open up, be vulnerable, to be caring, and to be loving. But if you're but um but to be a hero, you have to not be any of those things. And so the way we got loved was by being people who are not very lovable.

[01:01:52]The way women got loved was by caring and loving and which is a lot more liberating than getting loved by being somebody who's not lovable.

[01:02:03]>> Okay. But I now it crossed my mind one you know this topic uh that's in the menosphere is very much discussed. Uh what about hibis hibistoilia?

[01:02:16]You know how how he hibistoilia uh uh like the >> you know the tendency for for uh uh women to be attracted to male prisoners >> to to male criminals. know this kind of thing those facts like all those >> for instance like the guy who committed a mass shooting in Norway like 15 years ago receives like 600 700 love letters a year in prison from >> is and and he's a monster but he he he he basically um appeals to a certain category of women who for for for the fact that he did those things because otherwise you wouldn't have been known but so how how that fits how this fits in in >> there are certain are certain percentage of women I remember when I was in high school you know and um you know women some some women very attractive women would be um you know sort of um attracted to the guy in a leather jacket who who you know um had the motorcycle and just was strong. Well, those are the sort of the primitive um manifestations of strength and you know and and power and women often fall certain percentage of women fall in love with those versions of that the destructive manifestations of power as opposed to uh other women who fall in love with the men who are you know they're going to be the future lawyer, their future doctor and so on. They're not manifesting the power um in that type of destructive way. Um and most women fall in love with more of those type of men. Um but there are a certain percentage of women um usually women who are not very educated um who are um and they and they have an attraction to just that um that that bravery that strength um that is that is directed and aimed in a very destructive way. Well, if I can add maybe I guess success can be defined in many ways depending on uh what your perspective on uh what's important in a man could be and you could have success defined as fame. Uh for instance, the man who would have committed a mass murder or shooting or whatever would be at least famous in spite of being nice and gentle. uh you could define uh success as having money of course we have discussed this extensively or having physical strength and so you have women being attracted to athletes or uh sportsmen whatever. So I guess success object is a broad category that has a lot of subcategories inside.

[01:05:04]>> Yes. And you know, if a man is a mass shooter and is willing to kill people and is in prison for it, uh the chances are fairly good he'd kill somebody to protect you. And so those are some of the primitive dimensions of that of of that. Uh fortunately, most women are not um attracted to the mass shooters. Um but there are certain percentage that are.

[01:05:28]>> Okay. So you you you think okay this those are the me okay the primitive mechanism you yeah because I've heard your lectures it's you you are from a psychology point of view because you you you would tend to acknowledge like okay like evolutionary psychology where do you situate yourself on the among the psychology schools which one would you um be part of if >> um I don't really because my doctorate is not not in psychology. I have not had to prison myself into one aspect of psychology. I just, you know, I' I've I was able to to figure out how to create this evolutionary shift from being able to be defensive with a partner to being able to really hear your partner and have your partner listened to, which takes a whole process that I talk about in the rolemate to soulmate book. But the um but that's that's really I've been able to do that ex in part because I haven't imprisoned myself to any type of psychology. Um I've I've just been able to say something is wrong here in people's inability to hear each other.

[01:06:41]Can I create a system that I call a caring and sharing um project for being being able to change that um so that we can all hear each other? And of course, one of this with the myth of male power when I met the woman who is now my wife um some 32 years ago. Um I that was about the time the myth of male power had just come out and and I asked her before we get together on our first date. Uh would you read this book? uh because if you really feel angry toward it and don't you know I I we shouldn't get together and I do ask you know men when they say you know I always get together with these women who hate men or they're very feminist in the orientation I say take ask them to read the myth of male power don't expect them to agree with everything but see if they will listen to it and then also read the book that they most want you to read um and then listen to what they would like you to to to read and then listen to each other about what's you know what's have a dialogue and listen to each other about your your perspect each other's perspectives on this and so it really is important before we get together to to sort of moderate um my my my wife is an extremely attractive woman and it would have been very easy for me to just um not ask her to need that and to just um jump into the relationship without without um and then worry about that later. But fortunately, she read it and was able to appreciate it and and she still remained attractive.

[01:08:26]>> That book didn't make her unattractive.

[01:08:30]>> You you you are you are a hero. So you are you are so you you are it it was some in a way it was your trophy this this book it it is one one of the most important books I mean I mean you you are very modest but it's come for for our audience we have to explain them that this book is really life-changing I mean for me it was life-changing for I think you've heard this a lot um for for the past 40 years but uh it's Um yeah it is really because you I I stress the fact that uh Dr. Farrell goes through to through the data it has this very progressive um way of presenting the facts and and uh and not jumping hard I mean to conclusions without presenting this data. This is very different from a lot of either feminist or what's called nowadays masculine literature which is not which more like on a on a very belligerent type of u of writings if you can say that. Um so it's that's why it's life thing because okay this is facts it's about okay look and also this very uh very very civilized way you have to also invite people to think from other perspectives which is maybe not something everybody shares we we try but I think one I want to ask you in my personal experience I when I I read your books and I thought what one experience uh I think in my life um I don't know if you could work with your with your uh um method in a sense. Okay, I want I want to expose it to you because it's I think walking in the other sex's shoes doesn't it have a a a physical limit?

[01:10:40]And I'm I'm speaking about specifically the sexual drive. Uh I mean the is it I don't know from my experience what unleashed the most problems is in my from with with a woman in particular was that she could not actually be in the shoes of a male in from the point of view of the sexual drive. Yes. And and and she yeah she couldn't understand that that sexual difference basically even though she was very intelligent and stuff but it was such um um a very a deep there a deep block blockage a deep um um how you say block a deep block.

[01:11:32]she she could not in view the sexual drive um diff in a different way and says okay put it very simply that men has a bigger sexual drive than women so basically that and I think it's not my case is not very special I think it's a problem for a lot of men and and the source of a lot of problems with their partner with female partner here >> and if I can add another one uh I think cyclical mood changes in women is something quite difficult for men. I I I mean I can grasp it intellectually, but I I have no idea how it actually happens. And I I believe it turns a lot of men completely insane because uh they they hear something and maybe 3 days later that same thing is completely flipped and they have to understand again and they don't understand why something that was consensual 3 days ago suddenly is um a bone of contention and yeah basically there is something there that I don't think men can really fully grasp.

[01:12:43]>> Yes, absolutely. Let me deal with the second one first and the first one second. The um the the key issue um first of all both of you are in my opinion accurate in terms of your observations and that's been my experience and the experience of almost everybody that I've worked with with some exceptions. The um but uh the most important thing to do for a man with a woman's cyclical changes is to just plain hear each time. and not assume that you need to do something about what she is complaining about.

[01:13:22]And so the the challenge for men is not knowing that the solution is listening, not repairing.

[01:13:34]We are trained to think that if a woman is bleeding that we need immediately to put the band-aid on it, but and and that that will solve the problem. But women don't want their problems solved by advice.

[01:13:52]Their problems get solved by them being able to express what's happening with them and not feeling that they're going to alienate somebody or somebody's going to rush to do something about it. they just and so um this the solution is just being there for that her sharing that experience and not holding her accountable to a contradiction between that experience and not solving the problem in actual putting the band-aid on type of ways. And when I talk to women about this, what I explain is that when a man does put the band-aid on from his perspective, if you're bleeding, it is absolutely a betrayal of his love for you by not finding a band-aid to stop your bleeding. And he stops your bleeding because he loves you. And but from the ma from the opposite perspective, what I'm saying to men is you have The ba the real band-aid is the listening ear and just being there for her while she complains and even if it contra completely contradicts a complaint she had a day ago, an hour ago or a month ago.

[01:15:14]Now, on the sexuality part, I think it's really important for women to understand that men's greater desire for sex with you is part of what has made you so powerful with men and made men so vulnerable with you. Whenever you need something from somebody else and you and you have to beg them to supply it, that mean that leads you as the person that needs it to have to pay a higher price in order to get it.

[01:15:47]It's a supply and demand issue. And when the woman is the supply and the man is the demand, uh we have to, you know, if if if something's a a great deal in demand, uh the price goes higher and higher and higher. And when your sexuality as a female is more in demand by us, we often feel we have to sort of keep our mouth shut or do something or be a hero or get a promotion at work.

[01:16:14]And then we get a promotion at work, we get more respect, we get one night's one night of sex um with that respect uh generated and then we end up at work and coming home late and the respect that we got one night works against us the next night. And so part of the reason we need to hear each other so effectively hearing each other is such a solution is to understand these differences that the differences between our sexual desire and your sexual desire are part of our biology. they, you know, that's part of what is um because we as men could, you know, could have sex with 50 different women um and the the the c um whereas women couldn't have sex, they had to take time to actually have the child from that sexuality in order for the culture to survive. And so those are all things that are just part of our biology and just um hearing each other and understanding that. But part of what creates the myth of male power, part of what creates male powerlessness is our greater desire for your sexuality and our greater addiction to your beauty than you have to us. We we want to see your breasts more than you want to see our penis. Um and so we spend billions, trillions of dollars a year uh trying to get your clothes off and you put us in jail if we expose our penis. Um and that creates an enormous amount of power on your part u that men do not have.

[01:17:47]>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Definitely. But it's it's very rational what what you explaining. The problem is when when it's irrational that's the thing.

[01:18:01]It's like because speaking about jealousy types, I don't know if you have in your practice met um I'm sure you have met uh uh the yeah the typical like the typical no not so typical thank god that the jealous type who really can't stand the fact that uh that that she or he is not the unique object of desire.

[01:18:30]Uh and even though she has a capac capacity for abstraction but viscerally it's it's it's not possible to accept the tr the truth. the the person can accept theoretically what you explained but viscerally um um she or he wants to be so the only object of desire possible. So this is the >> the only object of desire is a different issue than the desired for sex as often as you desire sex. So there's a male female gap that's quite considerable between men's desire for sex with their wives or their woman friends. Um but there um but neither sex is very comfortable. Uh you know when a man has an affair um the woman is usually extremely upset even if she's even if she deprivives him of sex most of the time. Um and and if you know if he were to say rationally, listen, um I when I want sex, if you want it with me, you're my first choice, but if I if you're not open for that, let me go out and have sex with somebody else. The woman doesn't say, "Oh, yeah, that sounds fair." Um she usually is quite um is quite um both sexes tend to be quite um jealous of their partner having an affair you know unless they have a an openly polyamorous relationship um and then you know that's a that's a a different um a different thing >> as a as as someone who has explained uh couple dynamics X uh throughout the last 40 to 50 years. Have you noticed any recent um change with the massive uh shift from traditional dating and um you know courting uh scene to online dating and apps and uh basically something that feels a lot quicker from first meet to uh intercourse.

[01:20:45]>> Yes. Well, there certainly, you know, when I grew up, you you basically couldn't have sex until you were married. And um and and so there's there's a huge difference between that and the expectations today. Um and and but there's also a male female gap.

[01:21:01]There's, you know, there's there's websites, there's sites like Only Fans where women can earn in excess of a million dollars a year, not by having even being touched, but just taking their clothes off and teasing properly and so on. pornography um often addicts men to um sex with um visual objects um but and that and that and pornography being addicted to it almost always reduces your ability to have sex with a real woman. Um so many many things have changed. Um the algorithms in pornography are extremely um powerful and addicting. So if you um if you begin to respond more to one um one way of of of men a man and a woman having sex um that algorithm is picked up and being a and then and then you're fed that more and more and before you know it the person having a sex with a real human being who isn't responding in every single way exactly the way you want is no longer satisfying and you can't get an erection and you can't have sex. And so these are all new new phenomena that are being dealt with every day. Um and they and they certainly reflect the myth of male power. The fact that you know that women can make a million more than a million dollars some and some do a year by taking their clothes off and not even being touched. And that's not and men cannot do that. And as I was mentioning before, um you know, when we expose our penises and our bodies, um it's usually um something we have to pay pay in order to do as opposed to get get paid for.

[01:22:50]>> Okay. So, >> and so that all that is part of the myth of male power for sure. And I need to get off because I haven't had lunch. Oh, sorry. No, we we are going we we have run out of glucose. Definitely run out of sugar here.

[01:23:07]>> Okay. No, no, it was so great conversation. Thank you Dr. Far. We will uh hopefully we will uh have another conversation soon and I mean uh we we can shed uh anyway we will speak about uh your the your translation first for the myth of May power and then we next year so for our audience we will release the French translation of rolemate to soulmate hopefully together with the boys crisis we we haven't spoke about but which very important book you wrote with John Gray, the author of No Men Are from Mars, Women from Venus. And you touched upon the problem of par of parenthood, of fatherhood, and all the problems of of boys being raised without their fathers and all the consequences on on on their well-being. And this is a very very important book. Um uh we are so honored to have uh the right to translate into French. So I think uh we will have other occasions to discuss all those topics. So thank you very much. Do you have any message for the French readers you would like to say before closing this up?

[01:24:26]>> Well only that I have a great um fondness for um France and Paris. I was when I was 14 and 15 I worked as a cabin boy on the sane river across from Le Batau Moosh. And so I really have an affinity for France and I'm looking forward to coming back and um promoting my these books that you're publishing in person um late next year.

[01:24:50]>> Well, thank you.

[01:24:51]>> Thank you so much, Dr. Farah, for your time.

[01:24:54]>> It's been a total pleasure. Really, I feel very honored to be with you.

[01:24:59]Thank you very