Open Group For Men [00:00:00] Degan: Facebook: Open group for men Quote: "There needs to be more than just a few like buttons" from Jack G on the internet. [00:00:11] Chris: Click if you hide your smile. [00:00:15] Degan: Click to say fatherlessness is an illness that calcifies. [00:00:21] Chris: Click to note the subtle emergence of an inexplicable hard on. [00:00:27] Degan: Click to register Amelie levels of mawkishness. [00:00:32] Chris: Click to say, four pints in, I love you, man. [00:00:38] Degan: Click to express undiluted wonder. [00:00:43] Chris: Click to register that in this moment you're angrier than a caged rhinoceros with an infected kidney, a plastic Perrier bottle stabbing your front left hoof and a gale rattling the zoo shutters making the parrots screech. [00:00:58] Degan: Click if you want peace, the kind of peace that rests its head like a leaf fallen resting on another leaf. [00:01:07] Chris: Click to log cool delight. [00:01:11] Degan: Click when you see a pic of her Arctic lake eyes. A green chiming sounds in your bones as if they've been struck with a tuning fork. [00:01:22] Chris: Click to pluck love from wild fear. [00:01:34] Degan: So that's the first page of a long poem of mine called Facebook Open Group for Men. About that Poem [00:01:40] Degan: Oh, welcome everyone to What Kind Of Man Are You? I jump right into the poem without even inviting. I'm Degan Davis. And I'm Chris Garbutt. This poem has a really special place in my heart and I think you know why. [00:01:54] Chris: Yeah, mine too. [00:01:56] Degan: Yes, when I launched the book you were at my reading and we read this poem line for line as we've just done here. [00:02:04] Chris: Yeah, that was a fun a fun time and I remember there was a line where you read it and it was like, oh, I was hoping that would be my line. And you're like you read it. That's right. I did read it. That was fun. [00:02:18] Degan: Do you remember which line that was? [00:02:19] Chris: It was like click to dance the apocalypto or something. [00:02:23] Degan: Yeah, to dance the apocalypso. [00:02:25] Chris: Yeah, that was it. Gender and Socialization [00:02:25] Degan: We are wrestling today with what makes a man. [00:02:31] Chris: Yeah, this is because I don't know about you, Degan, but I felt like we needed to go here because it kept coming up in little ways and in big ways in the other episodes. And I started thinking about, there's a lot of, talk about gender in the world now. And, [00:02:53] Degan: Maybe too much talk. [00:02:55] Chris: Maybe too much talk. I'm not sure how many Bono references I can handle, but the idea of gender, the idea of sex versus gender and the idea of it being on a continuum, a spectrum the backlash against that, which really wants to say, no, there's one or the other it leads me to have a lot of questions. I'm not sure I'm going to have a lot of answers. I don't think we'll solve anything in this episode, but [00:03:24] Degan: I was just going to say have no fear because it'll all be tied up with a bow at the end of this episode. Oh, okay. [00:03:29] Chris: Then I guess it'll be on you to do that Degan. [00:03:31] Degan: Yeah [00:03:33] Chris: Do you want to say anything more about that? [00:03:36] Degan: No, and maybe i'll just go back to the poem for a moment just like a little touchstones, Yeah, so I agree with you like, gender, what? The hell [00:03:44] Chris: What's up with gender anyway, [00:03:46] Degan: And we are socialized as men. If you are male presenting the world is very different than if you are female presenting, and it's very different if you are more androgyny presenting or trans presenting all the rest of it. But, the signals we get when we present as male or female are really different. And and that's the social ensemble that we live in around relationships is different. Maybe I'll just talk about this poem a little bit, and these might be little touchstones we can come back to. Click if you hide your smile. That's the first line. And, I'm at a conference, or sorry, at a residency. I'm completing my Master's of Fine Arts in Nonfiction and Fiction right now. I'm in Colorado Springs. And I'm meeting a bunch of new people here, men and women, and a lot of LGBTQ plus folks. And I notice around the men, I'm getting to know some, but I do have this reserve. I don't know them and so click if you hide your smile and I'm not presenting a frown or an angry look, but sometimes I bite my lip a little bit. I'm not. I'm not revealing myself, my facial expressions until, we have a conversation and then we see what kind of connection there is. And then for those that I don't connect with, I keep that face, which is neutral but there's a bit of a hiding of a smile. A smile is too open. [00:05:08] Chris: I think that's true for women too, but the reasons are different . There's this joke about resting bitch face, right? But we both genders have that but for women, it's like protection from [00:05:23] Degan: The gaze [00:05:28] Chris: The male gaze not the gay people. [00:05:30] Degan: No, that's what they can smile at, the gays, G A Y S. [00:05:35] Chris: Yeah, exactly. And so for men, it's a different form of protection. It's a protection from shame, I think.Even this first line opens up so much because you have talked about how your enthusiasm has sometimes gotten you into difficult situations. Like people are whoa, Degan yeah, I don't know what your experience is exactly, but you describe that feeling that you put yourself out there and you were like, reined in somehow, [00:06:08] Degan: I have had that for sure. And, and that's interesting. Then I would have felt shame there, but shame is curious because it also teaches you the kind of way society works. So in a way, I don't judge the people who did that. It's okay, what you're telling me is. That seemed too open to me and I wasn't comfortable with it. And so there was a kind of learning of that script. And I'm just thinking of a scene. Do you ever see them? It was the movie. I think it was called Capote, based on Truman Capote's life and the writing of In Cold Blood. [00:06:40] Chris: I did see that movie, but I don't remember the scene you're. [00:06:42] Degan: Yeah, I'm thinking about a moment where I think he's meeting the murderer, the convicted murderer and I think the murderer makes some kind of some kind of slight against him. If I'm remembering correctly, which is basically you're so open and it's played by the brilliant actor who died. You know who I'm talking about? [00:06:59] Chris: Yeah. Philip Seymour Hoffman. [00:07:01] Degan: Yeah. One of the greatest actors of all time, I think. And he looks at him with steel because in this rendering of him, this presentation, he's been quite open and gay, he was gay, he was expressive, And he looks at him with steely sharp eyes and says, everybody underestimates me. And there's a kind of polarity, right? And openness and expressiveness. And if you're going to be called on it, F you, everyone underestimates me. And I'm way more than I look. [00:07:29] Chris: I am not an open book. I remember that scene and thinking, huh, that's fine. And I'd like a middle ground in that. Yeah. So this. This is where my questions come in, because we actually, we love that in movies, right? Where someone shows their toughness, right? And so true way to right and. And, one of the things we're starting to see is more female superheroes, for example, or female tough characters. And that's a form of progress. But at the same time, there's this idea of valuing the toughness over all other ways of being which interests me, whereas other ways of being can also be, useful and valuable and I think what you're saying is balance people. Sure. Is [00:08:24] Degan: there a question that you're crystallized this? I think this is an idea about. I don't know. [00:08:31] Chris: What I've noticed in my lifetime around the changing roles of men and women that we have gone from men's work and women's work, and we've said that the men's work, women should have access to and so we value. Men and Domestic Responsibilities [00:08:55] Chris: And we devalue the traditionally male work, and we devalue the traditionally female work, right? So domestic work is considered drudgery now I've worked in an office and oh, my God there is a lot of drudgery in an office and even in manual labour, but we seem to think that's good and part of your identity, whereas domestic work, like cleaning the house, taking care of children, all those sort of things are seen as of less value even though without those things, our society would completely collapse. [00:09:37] Degan: I'd like to come at this from a slightly different angle. [00:09:40] Chris: Okay. [00:09:41] Degan: Men are doing a lot more domestic drudgery. Sometimes it's fine. Listen to a podcast while I'm doing the dishes and making my kids lunches. But we're talking about what makes a man here, right? And this is the idea of hiding your smile. And also you're talking about strength. I want to share something that a friend of mine said, a Montreal writer said to me, a femalewho had been visiting Berlin and she expressed, and I think this is not too strong a word, disgust at the feminized men pushing baby carriages down the street in Berlin. Berlin is a really interesting place, right? If you think about it historically that whole Weimar Republic, the very incredible openness to feminine expression thinking about the bars and the sexual openness of the twenties and thirties before Hitler arrived. And so there's maybe there's something in this Berlin openness, but it was interesting because she saw it as like these wilted men, with sort of baby packs on their back and pushing a stroller, looking defeated to the world. I have really been watching for posture and form in men who are doing domestic jobs or who are taking care of kids who are taking care of a household, and I, there's something in that there's something disquieting or a bit nauseous inducing about seeing a man weighted by a domestic task in such a way. And so I think of that myself because and I remember seeing a friend of mine with, he had a kid on his back. He was holding one's hand and the other was about 10. So she could walk, she could take care of herself and he was in the subway, smiling and happy as hell. And going off to a concert with three kids, one of them a baby, and I'm like, man, hats off to youI guess all I'm saying is, and there's so many things to talk about here, right? What's the socioeconomic status of this person? Are they marginalized in this way? But in Berlin, I think she was talking about middle class, upper middle class guys who were in a domestic world and she felt it was not manly there wasn't a spine there and I think there's something here about we don't need to reduce to a lowest common denominator here. [00:12:04] Chris: We can be these vibrant beings, right? Vibrant men who are strong, who can carry their kids and hold their backs up straight. My immediate reaction to her reaction is that sounds like her problem [00:12:18] Degan: Yeah, [00:12:18] Chris: To me, men with strollers is pretty normal now. And it's been pretty normal for 20 years, [00:12:25] Degan: Just to be clear, because I think I remember talking to my dear friend, Stan Dragland the writer who passed away just a couple of years ago, he talked about being a man in the 60s and 70s, pushing a stroller. And he was an outcast for doing it. I'm not saying men shouldn't push strollers at all. [00:12:40] Chris: Right [00:12:41] Degan: I'm saying what she was looking at was their defeated, wilted nature. [00:12:47] Chris: Right [00:12:48] Degan: and you're right. Maybe she's got something on with this. It struck a chord. [00:12:53] Chris: I would love to do a whole episode on housework actually, and the division of domestic labour, because [00:12:59] Degan: as long as I order, skip the dishes for that episode, [00:13:03] Chris: I'll cook. [00:13:04] Degan: Oh, yeah, you love to cook. Great. [00:13:06] Chris: That's the thing is there are things I love in domestic labour, and there are things I hate about domestic labour. I hate vacuuming, but I love to cook and I love doing laundry. I hate ironing. In my relationship, we do the things we like, and then the things we don't like, we divide up based on who hates it the least, I don't know. [00:13:29] Degan: I think what I'm talking about here is performance of gender. [00:13:32] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Performance period. I'm not talking about any particular act I'm talking about the way our body posture is and that's what I think she was picking up on. I guess the thing is though [00:13:43] Degan: there's her personal reaction. And then there's her personal reaction that is societally informed. What is it that it seems defeated about them. They lost, right? They were beaten into submission and now they're like beta males who are whipped by their female partners and this is as much a stereotype as women doing housework. Sure. Yeah. I guess it resonates for me. I've got three kids and I certainly can complain. It's not that I just want to present as strong. The Modern Man's Identity Crisis [00:14:23] Degan: It's that I want to take care of myself and I know, and my 14 year old daughter knows, and so do my twins, who are almost seven, if I haven't slept enough, I am not as good a dad. I am not as present. And so when I take care of myself,I walk down the street like my lunches are ready if we're going to a park. I'm just more available. I'm more alive, and so maybe, it's hard to take her comments and my comments and then try and say something in a big picture, although I have heard some filmmakers and some writers suggest this idea of men being I don't know, overly feminized or just not being men, whatever that means to them. So I think it's more that, so maybe in a way it's health, maybe I'm seeing posture and presentation as like health, and I know when I don't get it, it doesn't feel good, and I'm bent over, not pushing a stroller anymore, but, carrying one twin on my back and grabbing the other and they're screaming for ice creams that I'm just like, don't have the grace to manage itas well as I want to. You're a single dad, right? Yeah, I have my kids half time 50 50. [00:15:29] Chris: So you are playing all the roles. But half the time. [00:15:33] Degan: Yes. [00:15:35] Chris: And when you have to do the domestic stuff, you feel defeated when you're exhausted. Sure. But we all feel that.Do you feel defeated by the fact that you have to do their laundry or you have to you have to [00:15:50] Degan: Yeah. [00:15:50] Chris: Make sure their lunches are made or whatever [00:15:53] Degan: I think it really just is there about taking care of myself and Louis CK, and I know he's been semi cancelled. I'm not fully cancelling him the comedian. He says he has this great skit about about divorce and saying marriage is good, but divorce is better. And he says, and so when my kids leave, I just pour whiskey on myself for four days, and then I go and pick up the kids. This kind of thing. And so it's how much whiskey I've poured on myself, here I am. I'm away for 10 days. I'm going to be coming back very soon to a lot of I'm trying to watch my sleep. Make sure I come in. So yeah, I guess we're now looking at this difference, right? We're talking about we're talking about the inner and the performative piece of right. And to me, the inner is really just being like a good parent. Someone who takes care of things, takes care of themselves. And I would love to hear thoughts from listeners about this idea of, because I think a big question to look at too is, how are men doing today? Actually beginning a novel on that very subject. How are men responding to, I think, to what I'm calling women's ascendancy. In large part today. [00:16:56] Chris: Yeah. And that's why this feels more like a question episode than an answer episode. [00:17:01] Degan: No, I still wanna tie it all up, but yeah. [00:17:03] Chris: Yeah. Oh yeah, you're gonna solve gender by the end of this episode. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I guess When I think about your friend seeing these men in Berlin, perhaps what, now, I obviously don't know what's in her head, but perhaps what's happening with those guys is, if they did look defeated and limp and all that kind of thing, which is, I don't know. Of course very much a unmanly thing to be isn't that they've lost a sense of what the script is now because the old script is being rewritten, but, were you using in an earlier episode something about building the plane as you fly it? I [00:17:47] Degan: was talking about how if we don't understand our emotions, which a lot of us don't, people, but particularly men, it's as if we're flying in a cockpit without an instrument panel. Mountains right in front of us, like a divorce or a challenge to our sense of ourselves and while we go into emergency. [00:18:04] Chris: And we are in a [00:18:07] Degan: tumultuous time when some people are ready to rewrite the script, some people are really not and actually want to go back to the script of the 50s, the 1750s and although, certain eras, men were wearing high heels and wigs. I'm not sure what what scripts people are trying to go back to. can we talk about that? No, you go on. But I want to come back to that idea of the wigs and stuff, because there's a couple of modern examples of that I think are hilarious. [00:18:38] Chris: Yeah okay. I will just say I can under I understand what your friend feeling and seeing. And I'm ready to change the script. I'm ready to rethink what my role as a man is. I've even already, like I said I share in the housework. I like to think I do half of it. My wife will probably say I don't. So that's not a resolved thing.The domestic is unresolved for sure. But at the same time, if you've grown up with certain expectations of what a man is, either from your father or from men around you, and they're big and strong and they're protectors and they look defeated when they're pushing a stroller around. it shakes your very sense of what the world is supposed to be like. And that's, that makes you feel upset. And I don't know maybe these guys were like, forced by their partners to do this and they'd rather be out playing rugby or something. To me, we talked in the last episodes about the duck and the lobster. Right [00:19:47] Degan: you know that I asked a friend. Oh, what attracts you to a man? I like the duck with the shiniest feathers, right? And we talked about Jordan Peterson's faintly ridiculous talk of the lobster and like the toughest lobster gets the tenderest meat, I'm quoting here. And often with Jordan Peterson, there's truth in this, and then it goes to ridiculous extremes, and then it comes back to truth, and it's very slippery. I keep coming back to the word posture and, Peterson talks about posture a lot too, right? Pick up something heavy and carry it, [00:20:20] Chris: Is that one of his rules? [00:20:22] Degan: I don't know if it's a rule, butjust to stay for a minute to come to stay with posture. Here Comes Jordan Peterson Again [00:20:27] Degan: I was sitting in the kitchen once listening to a podcast or YouTube talk of Peterson's and largely with a critical eye because of, how he's been expressing himself, what the kind of brand of masculinity that he's been, pushing, I think which is to me disturbing but that's a whole other subject. Buthe talks a lot about worth, about worthiness pick up an object and carry it. And this was not an intellectual response as I heard those words. I was washing dishes. Talk about domesticity. And my spine straightened and my posture straightened. And he's on to something there. And I think what he's on to is something perhaps that this friend and others have noticed and in this kind of condition of the modern man, and this idea then that we're confused and are defeated and maybe the strollers was just a more obvious example, right? Okay, you're picking a stroller and then you look defeated, but perhaps there's a lot of defeat around men or confusion which looks that way. [00:21:34] Chris: So this might be a good segue into what you wanted to talk about. Because I agree with you. I think of Jordan Peterson primarily as a purveyor of disinformation but all disinformation starts with a nugget of truth. And I think the idea that men are unsure and in crisis and sometimes feeling defeated is not unreal. It is true. That happens with me too. I There are some days where it's just I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. [00:22:08] Degan: Yeah. [00:22:08] Chris: And it touches me at an identity level. [00:22:12] Degan: Yeah. [00:22:12] Chris: And my primary identity most of my life is being a man. And at the same time, I have never felt like enough of a man, and these are all like old things because I didn't measure up to what I was taught a man is supposed to be. [00:22:29] Degan: I was going to respond to this idea ofsignals and what it teaches us to be masculine and some of these Peterson ideas I'd like to respond to the idea that it's a purveyor of untruths or mistruths I think maybe we should take a quick break. For a little pause Let's have a break and stretch and come back. All right, we've taken a break, taken a breath, had a little stretch. I've had a sip of tea. Is tea manly enough? Should I be drinking coffee? It depends. Is it like Jack's hard tea? [00:23:15] Chris: That doesn't sound very manly either. [00:23:17] Degan: Or is it Nigel's nasturtium blend [00:23:20] Chris: And lavender, which actually sounds pretty good to me. But anyway no, it's just regular black tea. We were talking about this idea of lobsters and ducks and There's a contrast between the crustacean and the strongest lobster gets the, so gross to me, tenderest meat. But then your friend said the duck with the shiniest back. And so if you're switching animals, you actually have something completely different, right? You have the bird world where the men are the pretty ones. And this is what really, and I've, I've worked at a university for 20 years, and I interviewed a lot of scientists. 1 of the things 1 of the scientists said to me was, we have to be really careful in anthropomorphizing animals because, female black widows will kill their mates. Same with praying mantis. And it's oh, we're not insects, but we're crustaceans. Come on, what's we have to be really careful with all of this. And the same with are we going to go to ducks? And are we going to go to robins and cardinals and, that's a completely opposite thing where the males are the ones who are adorned with the pretty colours and theinteresting thing. Body shapes and most of the females in the bird world are gray So what the hell is that then? [00:24:58] Degan: But to me what I find interesting is that the simplistic animal whatever anthropomorphizations of men and women in the courting dance, using animals. It's just how similar it was. Yeah, they're going to have different ways. A peacock has a particular way. This bird has a particular song. The lobster has the bottom of the ocean struts or whatever, right? But to me they're pretty similar. Like this piece that I think Peterson is getting at is, it's a show you're right. It can be a prettiness, right? And let's be honest, there are some, gorgeous men. In fact, I had a friend who in high school was in a sense so beautiful that he ended up growing out his beard and his long hair so he could mask that because he got bullied for it, but had a beautiful face. That is an attractive feature, but it depends on how you play it. It's funny, and I'm not an apologist here for Jordan Peterson. But I actually think at core, he's touched something that resonates with me. And I can only really speak for myself. And it's the sense that for me, I grew up more in that kind of expressive mode. More of more feminine energy. I can say how that happened. One of the lines in this poem is fatherlessness is an illness that calcifies. [00:26:19] Chris: Right [00:26:19] Degan: Calcifies in your blood, and I didn't have complete fatherlessness, but I, as we talked about in the early episode, I wasn't led through in the way you were how to string a fishing rod, and use the lures et cetera, et cetera. And so I had this sort of feminine energy and since in the last 20 years, it's been really important for me to consciously build up this masculine energy, not just for performing. Maybe it is partially for performative because I'm wanting to, be in the world as someone I'm happy with, but it just feels right. And so when you talk about the misinformation of Peterson, certainly there's a lot happening now which I think is very angry. Which And a very concrete and there's not a lot of room, it's interesting Peterson began as a therapist he was a researcher but he was an active therapist for a long time and I really do not feel that sense of listening from him that sense of the openness of what a therapist, has as part of their being but he has different things he wants to do now, but I do think at core, some of those pieces weren't misinformation. They were they were this idea of, yeah there is confusion. And he was seeing maybe it is this droopiness or this kind of sense of defeat in men and saying, Hey, pick yourselves up, clean your room. Pick up a load, do this. And it resonated. Let's be honest, Chris, you and I, after our last podcast, we're sitting in a bar and we were talking to a guy who used to be a big Peterson fan, he was saying, how much he got out of him and how he feels like he's off the rails right now. And so I think I just want to say this. Peterson's Influence and the State of Modern Man [00:27:55] Degan: I think Peterson touched on something in the zeitgeist and it really connected with a lot of people. And I'm talking not even about gender. I'm talking about people who were transitioning . I'm talking about women who have come up to me a number and said, I really like what he's saying. In fact, I met someone on the plane coming to Colorado who had all of his books and we talked about where he's going now and what's problematic. So anyway I think what we're maybe uncovering here, what I'm wanting to uncover throughout some of these episodes is, what is the state of man today? What makes up a man today? And where are we feeling like out of sync, out of step or out of place with who we are and society? Critique of Peterson [00:28:38] Chris: I would actually say that, Jordan Peterson is worse than misinformation. I would say he does disinformation. I think that he has-- talk about someone who's calcified. He has picked a lane and he, as you say, he doesn't listen. He yells. Yeah. I don't, I went down at Jordan Peterson rabbit hole a long time ago and found himnot very interesting, although he had a suggested reading list, which I checked out, which has some interesting books on it. But that was like back when he first became controversial and I thought, oh, this guy's just a conservative. We should just ignore him because he doesn't, there's his whole thing where the got him notoriety was like, just stupid, really? But I don't want to get into that. [00:29:31] Degan: We can leave him. We can leave, him. [00:29:33] Chris: Yeah, I think, yeah. He has, and that's why I think we need to leave him aside, because he, this is the last I'll say about it he's got an agenda now, right? It's very clear. He's capitalizing on this male uncertainty and he put out a book of 12 rules for life as if following rules is the answer here. And, it's a very hardened look at the way the world works. What is Masculine, Really? [00:30:01] Chris: But what I wanted to talk about and segue into is this idea of men and what's the word? Expression of femininity and things we consider feminine. And, there's the whole changing of what's feminine, right? Pink is considered a feminine colour, but I believe at one time, pink was very masculine because they couldn't wash the blood of their enemies out of their white shirt, right? [00:30:28] Degan: I read it. I. Akin to fire, pink is close to red it's a dangerous colour for women but soft blue would suit or blue would suit the feminine psyche or what have you. Yeah. [00:30:40] Chris: Yeah. I'm just, I may even be making that up. So don't. [00:30:43] Degan: I love it. I love it. [00:30:44] Chris: quote me on that but was a time when frilly clothing, as we talked about before the break, powdered wigs high heels, these were all considered male. Now, it is hard for me to get inside the head of one of those people. Obviously, it was a long time ago and think, how does all that make you stand out as a man? But it did. [00:31:11] Degan: Oh, sure. That's the cultural norm of the day. I was reading it listening in a podcast, too. I think it was the Greeks and the Turks. This is going way back. But basically the Greeks wore skirts. And when they came to, I think it was the, maybe the Assyrians, who wore pants. They thought it was the most feminine thing, most ridiculous and feminine. So we have examples of this all the way through. Think of like the band Kiss, right? They would wear those long platform boots and makeup. They were taking these old, expressions of actual masculinity way back. So the boots used to be expressions of masculinity, tall boots, probably more around the 18th century. But I'd be interested, and I do want to say, before the end of this podcast, I would love to get into the joy of what is within a man today. I've got some thoughts about that. I just want to plant that seed because, we're talking a lot about this sort of sense of droopiness and defeat. But today, yeah to me, it's just, there are norms, there are fashions there are the mores of today, and, you fit in them or you don't. And I do think actually, and I work in a college, and I do think more and more, there's a lot more openness to expressions within clothing and the rest of it. At least there's a, at least there's a community of queer people that are just like, I don't care what you wear,We can talk about these norms now and in some ways, in some ways they're getting very concretized. Trump represents that absolutely. And Toys R Us, like I go into Toys R Us with my kids and I say, can you point me to where the Lego is? And no word of a lie, the cashier says the girl's Lego is over there. And the girl's Lego is pale blue, is pale colours. It's electric cars. It's scenes at the beach and it's houses and the boy Lego is pale blue. Is Star Wars, Harry Potter, dark colours, cars, planes, Indiana Jones kind of thing. Dinosaurs, right? And this is capitalism is rolling along here and saying it's almost like we're going back to the 1950s. So we have these two forces, right? We have this Trumpian force of let's go backward to the 1950s. And then we have this remarkable ascendancy of gender fluidity and different expressions of who we can be. They're at war. They're absolutely at war. And who knows what will happen? [00:33:38] Chris: They've had declared, had war declared on them. I think don't think anyone who considers themselves gender non conforming or something like that would consider themselves as having gone to war, but they do feel attacked and [00:33:58] Degan: they are attacked and it's not. [00:34:00] Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's my point is that. It's not their fault. Huh. Yeah, no, you're right. [00:34:06] Degan: But a country, someone declares war on a country, Poland did not, Czechoslovakia in World War II, they were invaded. Yeah. I just wanted to make The Complexity of Gender Identity [00:34:16] Degan: that, make that clear that it isn't, I guess maybe where I stand is that some people think that there's some sort of weird agenda that trans people that want everyone to change their gender and 90% of the time they would just wanna be left alone, yeah. Just like anybody. The choice to affirm your gender in internal sense of gender is the bravest, bravest move I think one, a human being can make right on, on Earth. And the idea that there's an agenda is so foolish and ridiculous. It reeks of q anon and fear, right? You talked about homophobia, transphobia. It really touches something profound in people's psyches, but the idea that it's a conspiracy, the idea that the kids who are who are growing up and saying, I do not feel like that the script around me is mine, and there's a beautiful line in that series, Transparent, where someone says, oh, you've changed and it's no, actually, now I am myself have hidden myself this entire time. I have not changed. Now I am myself. And it's better than that. And it's so powerful. So I just to say that the bravery of someone who is expressing their trans self is I'm in awe of it, and I think we need to protect them and celebrate them, and there's nothing insidious going on, and that's just a fear, that's our fear. [00:35:47] Chris: And treat trans people as human, for God's sake they're not magical, they're just freaking humans who have a certain thing about them that's different from what my experience is or your experience is. [00:35:59] Degan: Let's save. [00:36:00] Chris: Yeah, let's see. [00:36:01] Degan: Can I just say, and I had talked about joy. Can we talk about the joy of being a man for a little bit? [00:36:09] Chris: Can we save that for a second? Because I have another question that. Oh, sure. It comes more out of this. Absolutely. Is Gender Actually Constructed? [00:36:15] Chris: And I want to, because it follows on trans transitions and people who are a different gender than the one they were assigned, I want to talk about nature, nurture and again, these are questions I do, I really want to know the answers. Maybe they're just questions that don't have answers. But when we talk about gender, one of the things, and of course, this is, comes out of feminism, is this idea that gender is constructed. And so if that is true, and I know I'm sure there are people who have spent a lot of time exploring this. If that is true why are little boys so often attracted to trucks and little girls so often attracted to dolls even without any kind of prodding. The other part of that is, why are there people who so reject the gender they're in that they're literally not that. Like trans kids. If gender was constructed, I don't think trans kids would exist [00:37:31] Degan: If gender was constructed. I don't think trans kids would exist. [00:37:35] Chris: What I'm saying is. If you're a trans kid, you're, let's say you're born an assigned female and, all the societal stuff and all the all the parental stuff is throwing dolls and frills and pink stuff at you and all you want to do is be a boy and play with boys and. [00:37:57] Degan: I think it gets more complicated than this. I think these are really like primordial questions around how we emerge, like how we come into the world and then what we're very quickly taken with. Seeing a truck and being like, I want to play with that. Or perhaps a doll in the nurturing piece. But I think both can very much be true. Trans Rights [00:38:18] Degan: I know a friend and I'm cautious talking, I'm not going to name anyone I know who is trans because we have Pierre Polievre, we know with pretty much an anti trans agenda. We have Alberta Premier Danielle Smith with an anti trans agenda. We have school boards literally beginning to tighten up and chill the expression and freedom of trans kids to express and use their own pronouns or there's movements for needing parental approval. This, these kinds of things are happening, right? So I'm not going to name any names because I don't feel it's a safe environment and it's getting more unsafe. I know of a trans child who's around 9 or 10 born withwith the sex of a boy who knew very early on and expressed very clearly early on she was a girl and she is a very tomboy, to use that old expression, girl, right? Someone who Is full of energy. In terms of or sports for cars for games for all the kind of traditional masculine boyish pursuits. We have this complexity in that. You [00:39:32] Chris: know I agree that it's complex and that's where I'm wondering where the nature and nurture come in that this is literally the reason I wanted to do this episode is based on this idea of there are people who are born and assigned a certain gender, and they know from a basically the beginning that they're not that gender and so is it true that gender is constructed then [00:40:01] Degan: This is a really good question. I think it's a 2 way street. I think gender is constructed in the sense that When my twins, son and a daughter, go into the Lego, right? When they go into Toys R Us, they see what is being what is being presented as feminine or masculine. [00:40:21] Chris: They're sent in different directions, yeah. [00:40:23] Degan: They are, but yet, if we were on a desert, if we're on a desert island, gender doesn't exist. We have trees and a koala bear or whatever, whoever's on the island to connect with. But it, I say that in the Facebook poem later on that which I'll, maybe I'll quote it really, because One of the lines in the poem later is, Click to register that gender exists only in relationship and is as unfixed and unbounded as water. But we don't exist outside of relationship, right? We don't on an island. But just to say, I think it's, you asked, the nature nurture. I think that there are what's the word, predilections, or there are natural interests that a human being comes into the world with. I see that with my twins, because I've got a kind of case study here. They're I'm their dad I their mother is their mother, their genetics are extremely powerful. And they're very different and they're twins, but I think that they'll come into the world with a set of interests and curiosities and they then they meet this Lego kit and they, so the world interacts with them, they interact with the world. And I think, as they get older, the world gets more and more powerful, more messages get clearer and clearer. And just to give an example of that, in terms of my twins here. I was listening to this great series of books called the Merlin Mysteries Treehouse Series by Mary Pope Osborne. And in one of the, we're listening, we listen to them in the car all the time, and in one of the episodes, Annie and Jack, who are the two kids they go back in time to the time of ancient Greece, and they meet someone who's about to take them to the Olympics, and Annie is super excited, and the man says, You're not going to the Olympics. Girls don't go. So I'm, and Annie and the story is that's terrible. Give me a break, and so I'm listening to my kids in the back and my son says,that sucks, but my daughter is absolutely disgusted and says that's terrible on her face changes and her eyes change and her body changes. So she is having this response to this historical reality. And so we talk about how the world meets us. And the impact is gender created. This is a strange way to say it. It's what role does history play on us? And this is more about shame than she's holding the sense of what have girls done to not be allowed in the Olympics? And in the story, Annie hides, pretends to be a boy, da comes in. So just to say, I think it's this conversation, this constant conversation, and it gets louder and louder the older we get. And there, then we have to go back, pull out of ourselves, who really am I? And that's why I say that the bravery to express yourself in the world as trans is remarkable. [00:43:30] Chris: Because you've got so many things saying, you're not welcome here. Yeah, that's really helpful. [00:43:42] Degan: we have to get the joy. [00:43:43] Chris: We will. The Joy and Performance of Gender [00:43:44] Chris: I and in fact In transitioning to joy, I want to just point out that drag queens are a slightly different thing but also gender nonconforming and drag queens are nothing but joy. They are, they are a form of resistance as well. And also, I'm not an expert in drag queens, but I've known some and I haven't watched any of the TV shows or anything, but the people I do know who have been drag queens, like you said before, they feel like they come into something as themselves. And it's not even necessarily their real self. Sometimes it's an alter ego. Yeah, absolute performance, performative. Yeah. But They come into something that is really something they've wanted to be and that is joyous like that is it's a lot of it is camp, which is a form of joy. I have to say one time I the song, my humps by black eyed peas, like that song just seems stupid to me. But then I saw a drag queen perform it. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is amazing. Like this person is having so much fun with this and it's hilarious. And so I just want to point out that I didn't, yeah, just this idea that being real to who you are, Is about joy as much as [00:45:07] Degan: Drag is really curious because you can say it's about being who you are and I absolutely agree with that, but it is absolutely performative [00:45:17] Chris: True [00:45:18] Degan: And it's performative in the way that I think it wants to bring It wants to a drag performance among other things, among, pure singing, dancing kind of joy, wants to put in relief our ridiculous and concretized ideas of gender. Right and whenever I go to a drag show, there was one here on the cam. It's funny here. I am in Colorado Springs It's one of the most conservative, places in colorado and there was a wonderful drag performance I'm, actually looking at where it was. I'm across the street from where it was And I was joking with someone half joking do we need to have a security detail here? Yeah, this is a very conservative part of America. And it was a wonderful show and And to me, the dominant feeling was, let's play here with gender and take all of the assumptions of masculinity, all of the assumptions of femininity, even, and blow them into a wild constellation of stars. And so you're left with just smiling and a sense of how ridiculous you are. So I think in a way, a drag queen is a modern trickster of gender. And and they make us uncomfortable. They make me uncomfortable. They make me uncomfortable in the places where it's like, Oh, my God, do I ever hang on to this in my masculine sense of myself, and often, to be honest, a drag queen there's often a, they have really pulled out of themselves or a masculine and feminine energy. Real toughness , in a sense at least in terms of the drag performances I've seen. So I have I think they're playing a remarkable trickster like role in society right now. And that's why I think they're the target of the right and the conservatives so much because they make them feel so uncomfortable. I think trans people people do as well, this sense that we don't look inside our gender, but I knew it. I love that you brought the joy of that because I feel that I'm just, I'm laughing. I'm cringing at myself and laughing outwardly when I see performance, [00:47:19] Chris: It's not my lived experience, but I'm, I actually find myself quite moved by the by trans people who who do come into themselves and drag queens who are, and drag kings actually. I've been to a drag king show where women dressed up as men. And I'm moved by that because they are people who are willing to go there. It's not just coming into themselves, like you said, with with drag queens and kings and queens. They're more, they are performative, but they're doing something that feels so valuable to me. And the fear that people have around with them around kids, it just seems like kids are the ones who will ask the obvious questions. But they alsoto dress up. Kids like to play with whatever they have at hand. [00:48:10] Degan: I think too, because we concretize our sense of what masculine and feminine is, to experience, like I took my kids to Pride and for them to experience this, the costumes, the expressions. It's this idea from the right that drag queens and trans people are going to infect the nature of children is so absurd when we have the screamingly loud voices of how to be a man and a woman are still, as we talked about from, there's many examples, but Toys R Us example and so many others. They're so clear that to have someone who offers something else, it's my God, that's some sanity. It's, of course, it's sanity for those people who are who are feeling like I've been born into the gender that I am not. But for anyone, any of us, for myself to think of God, yeah I'm feeling a little bit as I get older I like being a man. I like these arts. I go to the gym. I've been working out more. I just like this. And when I see a drag show, when I talk to people who are trans just about their own experiences, I'm like, okay I don't want to take myself too seriously. I like doing this, but it gives me this sense of yeah, there's, I don't want to get stuck in a role either. I don't want to get stuck in a performative role. I want to allow myself as I bring up this masculine energy, which I really like also to be playful too and not be too serious. Well, this might be a kind of segue into that. [00:49:50] Chris: Degan has pulled out a book. I've pulled out a book. [00:49:53] Degan: I've pulled out a book. Okay. I'm going to share a story here. The Beauty of Masculinity [00:49:57] Degan: We have both seen the TV series I Love Dick. Yes. Which based on the Chris Kraus book, which I haven't read but I want to created by, Jill Soloway at the time, Joey Soloway they're going by Joey Soloway. There's a scene in that which I think about at least every couple of months. It's probably one of my favourite scenes in television. And the actor, Roberta Colindrez, I think is how to pronounce it. And I don't know if they go by they, but I'm going to say they, because there's a kind of androgyny to the character. [00:50:30] Chris: Fluid gender sense to her. Yeah. Absolutely. To them. [00:50:34] Degan: And so, in short, this person has been sending out flyers to anyone in Marfa, Texas,which is kind of its own interesting place because it has an arts colony, but yet it's surrounded by a lot of cowboys and what you call ranches and sort of masculine culture. And so spoiler alert, turn this off if you haven't, if you're in the middle of this and, and you don't want to hear this. We'll call them Roberta. I'm not sure of their name in the series, but they create a dance of men and they hand out flyers and say, come and join my performance art piece, and they get some of the artists. They get some of the cowboys, they get some of the oil men working around. A mix of men come and join Roberta. And the scene begins with them at the front behind this wonderful ragtag mashup of men of all kinds. And, I'm going to read the opening lines of this art project. "What we're going to do today, gentlemen," and you can just, you can hear the drums behind, right? There's a kind of a Mexican style band and the drums beating. [00:51:52] Chris: Yeah. It's a little bit of an Indigenous feel to the drum beat. Yes. It has that ceremonial drum sense. Yeah. [00:51:57] Degan: "What we're going to do today, gentlemen, is offer up our beauty. This is a beauty dance." And they're moving in rhythm, just gently moving their feet back and forth, and then the rhythm speeds up. And there's this queer cowboy leading this beautiful, mesmerizing, steady, manly, expressive dance, which in one moment is just moving back and forth, and then there's a fist shaking. And rhythmically, it's like a kind of art piece or a ceremony. And after about a minute, you can feel the ripples of this movement through those watching. And I think what's striking me about this is it is a very masculine moment. [00:52:50] Chris: Yeah. You had said it's a very masculine dance. [00:52:52] Degan: It's a very masculine dance. It's, steady. It's rhythmic. It changes its rhythms. So it's not just a military kind of beat. But it's so contained in a way. And there's something so compelling about this group led by this queer cowboy this cowboy masculinity. Right. And it's, this is [00:53:15] Chris: Cow-they, [00:53:16] Degan: Cow-they, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it is. because most of the people watching are women, and when they're invited in, it's, I don't want to say hesitant, but it's gradual. And they never actually join with the men. They kind of come up closer. And they are enjoying the hell out of themselves with this. It is a really great, great moment. It's a beautiful moment. That moment of, that you can hold this masculine rhythm and being and be open with it. These are men, the cowboy hats and there's a vulnerability to it and a strength to it on display. [00:54:05] Chris: Right. [00:54:06] Degan: A beauty dance. [00:54:07] Chris: Perhaps a little finesse and rage. [00:54:11] Degan: Yes. Yes. [00:54:13] Chris: The fist pumping. [00:54:14] Degan: Yeah. And you know, and I think when, when they say this is our beauty dance, I think it's my favorite scene in almost all of television. Which is saying a lot in the golden age of TV. That you really can bring both up, absolutely. And everyone could feel in the response or the integrity of it. The integrity of just being a man. I think what I want to say here is that is also how beautiful it is to be a man, how the incredible beauty contained within it. Conclusion and Reflections [00:54:49] Degan: You know, we make so much of gender, and men right now are, we're on the defensive in a way, right? We're looking at the dissolving of patriarchy and the response to it but we're, we're [00:54:59] Chris: Changing story of what it is to be a man. [00:55:02] Degan: And I know from working with a lot of young men in the universities at the moment, and at the university I work at, there is a feeling of like, whoa, I, it's hard for me to speak my mind, it's hard for me to talk, I have to be really careful. It's a changing landscape all the time. And, if we even lift off from gender for a moment, there's this beauty in us. And we are socialized as men and we come up with it and there's absolute beauty in us and we have, there's no reason for us to hide, to not come out, to not come out and engage, in whatever way that is with, with complexity and with beauty . This side that can take risks to share what to go in and to share what is actually being here and to be really tough to be really strong in whatever way that is [00:55:51] Chris: Whatever that means [00:55:53] Degan: Whatever that means It can be traditional and and I think there's something about that. that's where I think the future can be. We think about you know, we think about the ascendancy of women, which I believe is there. We think about the reaction from Trumpism, which is there the the not just integration, the force of light to me in this is, say, bring up these sides that we have. We do not need to polarize this. Bring up these masculine and feminine archetypes, places spirits, and dance with that, you know? [00:56:23] Chris: He's turning his book over. [00:56:25] Degan: Okay, last piece. You know we're talking about the, the butch cowboy. [00:56:28] Chris: Right. [00:56:29] Degan: This is a book called The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich. She lived in, I think it was Montana for a a while. And she is talking about when she's coming back to New York, and saying, I really miss,being out there, in the wild, and looking at a poster of the Marlboro Man. Oh yeah. And, seeing you know, seeing his face, and thinking, that it doesn't assuage what she's missed, because she says the Marlborough man and that myth does not touch what a cowboy is. And I'd like to read this paragraph of what she feels a cowboy is, thinking about this idea of masculine and feminine. " If a rancher or a cowboy has been thought of as a man's man, laconic, hard drinking, inscrutable, there's almost no place in which the balancing act between male and female, manliness and femininity can be more natural. If he's gruff, handsome, and physically fit on the outside, he's androgynous at the core. [00:57:32] Degan: Ranchers are midwives, hunters, nurturers, providers, and conservationist, all at once. What we've interpreted as toughness, weathered skin, calloused hands, a squint in the eye, and a growl in the voice, only masks the tenderness inside. Now don't go telling me these lambs are cute, one rancher warned me the first day I walked into the football field sized lambing sheds. The next thing I knew, he was holding a black lamb. Ain't this little rat good looking?" [00:58:06] Chris: What Kind of Man Are You is hosted by Chris Garbutt and Degan Davis. Produced by Chris Garbutt at VQC Media. You can support us at buymeacoffee.com slash Chris Garbutt. Music composed and performed by Degan Davis. You can buy Degan's book at brickbooks.ca. Thank you to all our supporters and listeners.