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Jan. 31, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
18:07
2603 Farewell Fathers, Hello Sorrow and Rage

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, discusses some of the challenges and opportunities of life without a father.

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Hi everybody, Stefan Molyne from Freedom Main Radio.
I hope you're doing very well.
So, once more, I dive where angels fear to tread into the realm of men and women and getting along better.
And I hope that you will find this of some use.
So, I grew up in the 70s and 80s.
That is the 1970s and 1980s for my younger fans.
And, boy, there was a lot of male bashing.
It still is, but, man, it really came into its own in the 60s and 70s.
Men are stupid.
Men are immature.
Sports and sex, that's all men care about.
Men are all the same.
That was even a joke.
What does the female geologist say?
Men are all the same.
Not a great joke, but a joke.
And this, for a variety of reasons, one of which was this male bashing, divorce rates went up like 300% in the 1970s, and it was like a neutron bomb had gone off in neighborhoods affecting only those with testicles.
And so...
One of the things that's happened, I think, is that it's really tragic, is that this trend has continued and in many ways escalated.
Like if you look at all the stupid sitcom male characters, the women are always wise and long-suffering and the men are always impulsive and stupid and shallow and emotionally out of touch and so on.
This kind of propaganda is really, really heartbreaking.
You know, if you scratch most contempt, you will find almost unutterable loss underneath.
The volcano of anger so often is fueled by the hundred thousand shards of a broken heart.
And when I hear women putting down men, What I hear is that they were not close to their fathers.
Just giving you an example.
So I'm a stay-at-home dad, and I have been for over five years.
And I'm very close to my daughter.
And when she gets older, if she hears women trashing men, or she looks at this endless parade of Homer Simpson-style idiots in the media, when she hears women trashing men, or putting them down, or complaining about them, I think she's going to say, It's my dad you're talking about here.
So stop that.
Right?
Like if my mom had adopted a black kid who was my brother and was a great kid and we loved each other and respected each other and we were closest brothers ought to be, that if I heard people putting down blacks, I'd say, hey, that's my brother you're talking about.
So if you're close to someone, it's the best way to break these kinds of stereotypes.
And these stereotypes can only persist in the absence of of closeness in the absence of a deep knowledge of another person in the absence of real connection and real empathy and so when I hear male bashing in society what I hear is a lot of women saying I wasn't close to my father When I hear women saying,
I don't respect men, or I think men are this, or I think men are that, what I hear them saying is, I don't have a father I can respect, and my father is this, that, or the other.
Now, we all know that the extrapolation from personal history or personal example to a universal is bigotry.
And if I get robbed by a Chinese guy and then I say all Chinese guys are thieves, that's an unwarranted extrapolation and, you know, kind of bigoted, racist, right?
This kind of male bashing can only conceivably continue in the absence of intimate and loving male role models for girls growing up and boys to some degree.
We're going to focus on the ladies for a moment.
And when you are close to someone, you can't generalize about that group anymore because you know an exception and therefore the general rule becomes offensive to you.
Now, one of the things that I am challenged on is my argument that men propose and women dispose, that men ask women out, and women say yes or no, and then men pursue women, and men woo women, and men buy flowers and dinners and concert tickets for women, and then they buy them an engagement ring, and then men usually will pay for the wedding, the father of the bride and so on.
And this means that women are in a privileged position of choosing men, that men pursue women and women choose men.
This is common throughout the animal kingdom.
It's common among mammals.
It's common among birds.
There's a reason why peacocks have those Kardashian butts floating after them.
And there are birds that dress up the nest to attract the women and so on.
So you think if the male ducks are pretty and the female ducks are not, it's because the males are in pursuit.
And this is biologically how it should be, right?
I mean, the men should be competing to get the affections of the women or the females so that the best genes can replicate in someone.
People sort of seem to have trouble understanding this.
Now, I've never been asked out by a woman in my life.
Of the girlfriends I've had, I always ask them out first.
Now, before you think that I look like the homeless Phil Collins troll that I do now, all the way back in, here's a picture of me when I was a young man.
Not bad, right?
I mean, I'd hit that.
In fact, I'm pretty sure I did.
So, I've talked to a lot of men and they don't get asked out by women for the most part.
It's men asking women out and, you know, buying dinners and pursuing women and wooing women and then women say yes or no.
No problem with that.
It just seems to be the way things are.
Now, if this is troubling for you to process, it's an easy way to understand it.
So imagine I'm looking for a job.
I don't have to have a job, but I'm looking for a job.
Maybe I'm independently wealthy or something like that.
Or, you know, one of those massively earning podcasters on YouTube.
It's where the cash is, baby.
Then I say to you, you know, I'm going to go look for a job.
I'm going to go look for a job.
But you know what?
I keep getting these offers pouring in.
You know, they'll pay me $100 just to come for a job interview.
And then they'll keep paying me more money every time I go for a job interview, and then I get a signing bonus of like $10,000 or $20,000.
We can understand that I'm in the position of choosing because the employers have to bring themselves plus money to woo me.
They have to pay me just to show up to be interviewed, and then to sign on, I'm going to get tens of thousands of dollars in a signing bonus.
Well, this is what it's like for women dating.
Right?
Men ask them out and men will usually pay for them to go on a date.
I know there's exceptions.
Please don't waste your time and my time by saying, well, I'm a woman and I pay for my own.
That's fine.
But we're talking about general trends here, right?
I mean, don't be the idiots who, when I say Orientals are generally shorter, say, well, I know a Toral Oriental guy.
Come on, let's work a little harder than that, shall we?
And this is what happens.
Women get a signing bonus.
I mean, they get an interview bonus just for showing up for a date.
And they get a signing bonus for accepting a marriage proposal, which is a wedding ring, which is usually a two-month salary, sort of the deburre's recommended level.
And then other people pay for their weddings.
And so this is $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 signing bonus just for getting married.
Well, that means that they're in the privileged position of choosing.
Because the men have to bring themselves and money and resources to the table.
Nothing wrong with that.
Women control 80% of family spending.
I mean, it's women who choose.
And so when I hear male bashing, what I hear in particular is two things.
One, I wasn't close to my own dad.
Because otherwise, male bashing would be offensive to you, as it will be to my daughter.
So I wasn't close to my own dad, number one.
And number two...
I'm upset that my mother didn't choose a better man to be my father.
Those are the two things that I hear when I hear this general scorn upon men.
Look, normalizing your own trauma by universalizing it unjustly is a completely natural human phenomenon.
And if your dad was a bad dad or an absent dad or a deadbeat dad or whatever, then saying, well, men are just like that makes you feel less upset at your own dad because he's just a man and that's what men do.
But if you recognize that there are lots of good men out there, just as there are lots of good women too, if you recognize there is lots of good men and lots of good women out there, then what your dad did, if he was not a good dad, was bad and it's painful.
and your mom is foundational to that choice.
Your mom chose who your father was going to be.
And, you know, unless she was a complete troll, she had choices.
Right?
She had choices of who she was going to marry or who she was going to have kids with or whatever, right?
So, when we are upset at both parents, but we let one parent off the hook...
Like, if we're upset at our father, but then we're not upset at our mother for choosing that person to be our father, then The parent who gets blamed gets double the blame if one parent is left off the hook, which is why the responsibility of women in choosing fathers is erased.
It always goes down the memory hole.
It doesn't even show up.
And then that means double the upset and outrage is going to be directed at the men because none of it is directed at the women.
Let me give you an example of this sort of double standard.
So, I did a video recently, The Dangers of Dating a Single Mom, and I had lots of emails and comments pouring into me saying, Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
What about The Dangers of Dating Single Dads?
Ha!
This came from women and some men.
Well, I mean, the obvious answer is that there's very few of us, right?
I mean, in Canada, with a population of like 35 million, there are 30,000 single, sorry, stay-at-home dads.
Right?
So, I kind of go with the demographics.
You know, I talk to the majority, right?
I mean, 60% of kids these days are born out of wedlock.
That's a...
Sorry, 40%, 60% in some communities, 40% as a whole, 50% women under 30.
It's a huge number.
In 1960, it was like 18%.
And so, a huge number of kids are being born out of wedlock.
And yes, people say, well, it takes two to make a child.
That's true.
But it's the woman who has to say yes or no.
Men will generally have sex if it's available.
Women have to be a little bit more selective because their investment in children, in fertility, is much higher than a man's, right?
So, I did this video.
All these people are saying, well, what about single dads?
Well, look, I will start making videos about the dangers of dating single dads when one Fundamental thing occurs.
You've probably seen articles about domestic abuse.
What is it?
It's always male on female.
Male on female.
Male on female.
The male domestic abuse, the female victims.
There are no men's shelters for abused men in relationships.
Yet, it's common knowledge, and it's been verified many times in a wide variety of studies, that 50% of domestic abuse incidents, that would be fully one half of domestic abuse incidents, are initiated by women.
Well, that's quite important, wouldn't you say?
50% of domestic abuse incidents are initiated by women.
So I will do the data of dating a single dad when I see one of these articles and underneath it, women are all pouring on and saying, well, what about the women who initiate 50% of these abuses?
Why are I always talking about the men?
See, this is the double standard, right?
When there's a large female problem, And you talk about it, then everyone says, what about the tiny male problem?
But when there's an equal problem, the female problem vanishes, right?
So I'm supposed to talk about single dads, though they're like tiny in terms of numbers of the population, but we can't talk about the fact that 50% of domestic abuse incidents are initiated by women.
That has to be blanked out, because equality then is not important.
Focusing on the other side is not important.
So that's just something to understand.
When it comes to viewing this double standard.
Because when I grew up, and still now, you see this relentless portrayal of women as sympathetic and empathetic and curious and sensitive and feeling and great listeners and all kinds of warm and soft, gooey caramel hearts on the inside.
And women will always say, you need to support me.
You need to listen to me.
You need to empathize with me.
I really want you to understand how I feel without judgment, without judgment, without judgment.
Don't judge me.
Don't blame me.
Just listen to my issues.
Okay.
Well, you know, men have some issues.
There's a whole men's rights movement that most women have never even heard of.
And yet, almost universally, when men complain about, I think, some pretty just things to complain about, women don't want to hear it.
Man up.
Can't get laid.
Get out of your mom's basement.
You're wrong.
You're lying.
You're misleading.
You're distorting statistics.
There's no listening.
going on from the most empathetic gender, right?
So my request and encouragement to women is, you know, listen to men who have complaints.
I mean, you've asked men to listen to you for lo these many centuries and to be supportive and to listen without judgment, without blame, but just openly and acceptingly taking in what the other person's issues are.
Don't be defensive.
Don't be avoidant.
Don't minimize all that kind of stuff.
Well, I would really find it impressive that If women were to do that with regards to men's complaints.
You know, three most powerful words in relationships are not, I love you, but tell me more.
If somebody has a complaint, oh, tell me more, tell me more.
I would like to hear more about this.
I really want to understand your perspective.
Tell me more.
I'm going to see a lot of women doing that.
I mean, I've had good reason in my life to be upset with women, and...
Outside of my friends, almost nobody says, you know, tell me more.
Tell me more about your experience or tell me more about what you find unjust towards men in the current social environment and so on.
And I think that's telling.
You know, people who claim to want a virtue should be the first ones to practice it.
And so I really do invite women to listen to men about their issues, about what they find problematic and With male disposability, with marriage, with divorce, with law courts, with alimony, all this kind of stuff.
If you want us to listen, it can be helpful to show us how it's done.
Because men can't solve this problem.
Men, by definition, have very little credibility with the majority of women because we are sports and sex-obsessed and shallow and unemotional and distracted and all that kind of stuff.
So it is really women who are going to have to talk to women about these issues, and that's sort of my invitation.
There is something very wrong.
Men don't want to get married these days.
Fertility rates are dropping all throughout the Western world.
Men are going on strike, at the shrugged, and it's an important issue.
And I think until women listen to Men's problems and complaints, this isn't going to be solved.
But first and foremost, I think women need to, if you grew up with an absent or uninvolved or abusive father, that was him.
That's not all men at all.
And he was there because of your mom's choice.
A male virtue is in many ways the shadow cast by feminine standards.
Men will generally be as good as they need to be to get a woman, and if women's standards go down, I'd say largely because the government has replaced men by funneling resources towards women through taxes and debt, and thus diminish the value of men to women.
If you grew up with an absent or uninvolved or abusive father, that's a heartbreaking situation.
I'm incredibly sorry for that.
You know, one of the most fundamental ways psychologically that we develop empathy is through the father.
empathy is developed through the father and um there's a reason why sociopathy has doubled in the last 15 years i would argue it's because we've got a whole generation of women raised to think that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle okay well then stop going to the state because the state is largely a male patriarchal institution so i would invite women to stop going to the state to make up for bad choices when it comes to dating and procreation
but um when women are told that they don't need men or girls don't need fathers then the girls grow up with much less empathy which means that they can't empathize with their own losses for not having a They can't empathize with men's issues.
We can't connect again as genders.
We're supposed to fit together not just physically but emotionally and spiritually like jigsaw puzzle pieces.
We're all supposed to fit together well.
It's not working very well at the moment.
But I think if women are able to process their own loss and to view the choices made by their mother regarding their father as problematic and worthy of responsibility and perhaps even some blame, then I think we can start to process the real stuff that is getting in the way of the genders coming along together.
But most importantly, when that process is done, please, please, please ask the men in your life the issues that they have with society, the And don't blow up and don't do all of this not listening stuff and don't immediately argue and go rush to find alternative statistics.
The emotions are real that men are experiencing.
The problems are real that men are experiencing.
And since women have talked for so long about the need to uncritically listen to somebody else's issues, please, please do that with the men in your life.
I promise you, it will do the world of good.
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