Mansplaining

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Also even to start off with what we understand, at least guide the conversation to what we understand by mansplaining in this particular instance. So mansplaining is a term used to describe a behavior where a man condescendingly explains something to a woman, assuming that she is ignorant or uninformed about the topic. This behavior is often rooted in sexes, them and a belief that men are inherently more knowledgeable or intelligent than women. Mansplaining can occur in various settings including the workplace, social situations and online interactions. It can be subtle or overt and can take many forms including interrupting, speaking over, or disregarding a woman's opinion or expertise. So simply a lot in there, mansplaining, which also leads us to it's a combination of mansplaining and emasculation. They both go hand in hand. Lovely to have you gentlemen join us. Can we say lovely? I mean, is that like English term? Lovely to have you? [00:01:09] Speaker B: I am. Okay, lovely. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Okay, I'm great. Great to hear that. So the brotherhood on the table today to have this discussion, niall McNish, producer, Johanse Iodk, behavior change consultant and Jeffrey Aka, will Wright White storyteller. Thank you so much for joining us gentlemen, once again on our big topic, big topic mansplaining. And the reason we're bringing up mansplaining as well and looking at it with emasculation is because I think both of them go hand in hand by the time we exercise. A couple of the subject matters that I've broken down here, I'm sure we'd all agree in the end, and I'm going to start off thought provoking, it's yet another term. There was toxic masculinity. That was a phrase coin. It's almost like it feels like the 21st century where there was a steel pan that these topics or these terms weren't around before. And now we're putting it into a box and this is yet another one, the toxic masculinity, first off, that wasn't around before and that's a behavior that might have been accepted or just simply not accepted before. And now there's mansplaining. [00:02:38] Speaker B: I don't know how many years ago it originated, but even hearing that term mansplaining, it seems so divisive because these terms wasn't around before. Yes, I grew up knowing, okay, there's a differentiation between male and female, man and woman, okay. And there could be certain characteristics that a man does and a woman a woman does, et cetera, right. I inherently knew that. But actual categorizations like this, it just seems divisive to me because just listening to the definition, that just seems like disrespect. So either whether a man does it or a woman does it, condescends and inherently thinks that I know I as an individual, not necessarily as a man or woman, I know better than you is disrespectful. So I would just think in my mind that's disrespect. But now because a man does it, it's now categorized as man's planning. And I say of course, because in some of my research of these things, there's always a bias because there's no terms based for women. Because if we being divisive like that, then there are things women do. So it's woman splaining or woman whatever, and then there are things men do which would be man splain, whatever. So I could go with that. But it's always seemingly something to do with what we as men doing, quote unquote, wrong. [00:04:09] Speaker A: So just to touch on your point, Johanse, the women a lot of times in conversation expect men to be somewhat clairvoyant and know what they like and know what they want. So we don't go, like you said, women planning or women complaining, just putting it out there. But it's good. It doesn't take away from the fact that I agree with the principle and what women are talking about, but we're talking about determinist. So when a woman says, oh, your man's playing. I've been in situations where you're sitting long in a room and say we're talking about football or you're talking about a particular topic and a woman says something and you immediately go as if you want to dismiss. So I agree what men do are wrong. You know what I mean? It's provocation. It's disrespectful to women. And we do it sometimes consciously and subconsciously, and we put it out there. And sometimes what we want to do is in that conscious effort, we want to tear that woman down or we want to dismiss what she has to say or disregard what she's saying. I want women to know there and men that I'm saying that for what it is, I believe it's wrong and it's something that we have to address and we have to give that respect. But at the same time, these terms that are coming up and like you said, from the time you put a term on that, as you say, you quite right. Will it's divisive. [00:05:38] Speaker C: Well, as you answer what I said, what I would think is maybe a way that we should consider approaching things more often, especially as men in this specific subject, especially is where is it coming from? So if I was to say Black lives Matter and someone was to say all lives matter, I would be like, okay, well, so that's a protest to my protest. Why is that even necessary? I'm not bringing this up to be condescending, but I'm bringing this up because I'm trying to highlight what I believe is a disparity. But of course that gets lost in translation. And I think it is divisive, as you said. But why is it divisive? It's being used in a way I think it's this collective exasperation, whether you agree or don't. I think it's reflecting kind of, as we would say, a fed upness, like I just oh, God, this again kind of thing. So I think it's like if someone was and especially considering, like I'm a white Trinidadian if someone was to be like, you said something racist in my experience. I've seen a lot of white Trinidadians or white people in general immediately get very defensive. They sort of freak out because it becomes an adversarial thing, because it's a divisive thing to say. [00:06:56] Speaker D: But as you said, men take it. [00:06:59] Speaker C: As an attack, as an emasculation, rather. [00:07:02] Speaker D: Than listening to what she's actually saying. And we all know that sometimes they could hide their meanings behind what they. [00:07:08] Speaker C: Say, and it may be right or wrong, but just for them to say it in the first place is, okay, just take it as it comes. [00:07:14] Speaker D: A lot of times men actually do a lot of man's planning. [00:07:18] Speaker A: I know that's what I'm saying. But it's just the father, the term, you put term on it that becomes divisive, right? It's when it's like we hear what you're saying. I'm agreeing that it's wrong. But then when you do that now, you immediately get my and I hope I didn't cut your Nile. And what I wanted to touch on two things importantly, Will said, and we want to actually expand on it in this conversation, is you mentioned about a protester protest, and you mentioned about being threatened. And I think those two things are very key. And I'm going to say probably say something very controversial when we talk about those particular topics. But I was looking at a couple of other podcasts, and one of the things is when men say something to a woman, the immediate retort is almost like, what about me, right? So I need a massage. You know what? I could with a massage. And I worked hard all day and it's like well, like you said, it's a protest of protest. So you say something or you dislike something and they bring up what you have done. But in that moment, it's like, well, I had the floor. The floor was mine. I didn't give over. And therefore, let's talk about this first without holding a thought. Without holding a thought to say retort, hear me out, really hear me. Listen to what I'm trying to say. And the other thing is the point about being threatened, that and this is what's going to be controversial. And guys, we can talk about either in this conversation or another, where women there's a belief, and I would say that I am citing to that belief that women are the superior gender. And I've said it before, and I know Johans looked up at me when I said it, and I've said it because apart from the threshold for pain and giving birth and multitasking as they do and all the rest of it, that men in terms of not want them to see their likeness. And I'm going to use just one quick example. The elephants in Thailand, for example, when they're a pup, they put a rope around their foot to stop them from moving around. When they get an adult, what happens? The same rope is on their foot, but they don't move. Why? Because psychologically, they feel the same rope binds them, that they can't break that particular rope. And I'm seeing that in the sense of threaten that men feel that, listen, if we allow them to know that they can break that rope, not like actual rope, right, that they would see their power. And if they see their power, we would lose positions. We would lose. [00:10:09] Speaker C: But are we seeing parallels right now? Like, very scary parallels, but they'll see their power with certain massive issues on our planet of oppression. So we don't want like, why do we speak in these terms of like, why wouldn't we want such a key part of our population to know their power and have their power? We can't trust them to use it. I mean, we have a lot of power and we're trusted to use it. We start wars, et cetera. [00:10:38] Speaker A: I look at you, I say, look at me. I don't know if you did. [00:10:41] Speaker B: This is perfect. This is perfect because so let me talk one what you're saying, Robert, about when let's say a woman uses the term mansplaining, even though we may not like the term mansplaining, I like the fact that we could in that moment examine what we're doing wrong. So let's say I say something condescending. Let's use the same football analogy. A woman speaks about football and maybe what she know about football, right? That could be dismissive and disrespectful. So let's say taking responsibility first for your own behavior, trying to see where she's coming from, even though she's a term that we dislike, it has validity because she's trying to say something, right? And I would say to even the woman that viewing in terms of managing your words, because you also responsible for what you say. I responsible how I take it and how I react it. But you're also responsible for what you say. And if based on communication, if you want the best outcome, it's best to use the best communication, right? So, again, I'm using everybody's responsible for their reactions and words, et cetera. So I agree with you that's one. Two is what you're saying there about power and being trusted. So let me come back to superior while I looked at it, because I wasn't too sure how to quantify a superior superior race, right? And we tried scientifically to see because pain threshold, if you go in pain, woman take more pain. I'm not even front. [00:12:11] Speaker A: And biologically, right? [00:12:12] Speaker B: But other things, when you go, we have to go piece by piece, side by side to really see who is the most superior. And I don't know if that could be done. [00:12:20] Speaker C: I think it's too complex. I mean, there are too many different. [00:12:24] Speaker D: Angles to look at it from appear, being soft. I think the reality is that when you strip away all the brass talks, it come down to violence, right? And no, physically, of course, if the will and society collapses. And it comes back down to the basic bare bones of how we survive as humans. Men will win a war if there's trying to speak on most basic tunes. Right? So if we're talking about just domination of one species over another, men are going to win. Even though there are less men in you will than women. Men will win. [00:13:06] Speaker C: Every war ever has been fought by men. [00:13:09] Speaker A: Let's be so we're talking about physical prowess and I'm only cutting you because I want to keep everybody with beated breath waiting to hear what comes next. So we're going to take a moment regroup, regroup and we'll further that talk. So I hope you heard the first part of manhood. If not, I'm sure you can rewind or trust me, it's worth the listen. Niall Johanse Will we were talking about emasculation mansplaining in particular and Nile was making a point about physical prowess and that men had the advantage. [00:13:57] Speaker D: I'll go more to we was trying to quantify superior in this particular situation and I was just taking it all the way back to the most basic human standard, neanderthal, which is who the strongest will survive. Right. Who could dominate who. [00:14:14] Speaker C: Right? [00:14:14] Speaker D: And that's where my ideology of trying to quantify a superior race or species. Right, so fast forward. [00:14:26] Speaker A: So you're challenging my thoughts on the superior, which is the superior gender. [00:14:30] Speaker D: Yeah, I do think that we should say that there's a superior gender. It's more like we are all part of we are all useful, we are all too functional. Exactly. But the word superior, if we were to get into it, that would be my comment towards it. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:48] Speaker D: Let's move forward to where we are today and why it is that men make all the rules. Because it came from a time when we were neanderthals. Women used to get hit over the head with a club and dragged to the cave then as far as cartoons. [00:15:02] Speaker C: Have told. [00:15:05] Speaker D: But I'm almost certain that it was some barbaric version of that probably even worse. Right. [00:15:09] Speaker C: This is a metaphor regardless. Right? [00:15:11] Speaker D: So fast forward to here we are today. Now where men now have a responsibility to be a little bit more gentler. [00:15:22] Speaker C: Anyone with power has that responsibility. [00:15:24] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:24] Speaker C: We're talking about men in this. [00:15:25] Speaker D: So us being men when it's time because we incendrically have the power. [00:15:35] Speaker C: How. [00:15:36] Speaker D: Do we now address that to women who feel that they don't have a voice in any room? [00:15:42] Speaker B: I would say, and I'll go back to what Robert was saying about acknowledging the pain, the harm, even again, even if it's not expressed in the way we want it to, acknowledging, hey, I want to be heard. Hey, I feel disrespected. Now, notice I said feel disrespected versus you disrespected me. Right. Because if she is feeling disrespected, it should be something to be addressed and that way if we be open to more of those, we could get a better understanding even how to lead. Because if I have all the power, but I don't understand any of the people I'm leading, then is dutishness are doing so being able to understand that I man is the head of the home, the leader of the home. If you're going traditional, but at the same time you have to pay attention. You don't have to you should pay attention to the woman. If you're in a workplace, even if you're in a team, if there's a female presence gives you a different point of view, at least acknowledge. You don't have to agree, you have to take everything, but at least acknowledge. [00:16:50] Speaker A: So not just because she's female. Are you going to say, okay, well, that position has to be right or accurate. But they always say if you know better, do better. And in this case, if you're in a room, a boardroom, any presence like that, and you see it's happening. That's what this brotherhood that we keep talking about, we always say better as brothers. That's what manhood is about. And by doing that, if I'm in a room and a woman is being I can acknowledge or I can see you can cut it with a knife, that woman's being disrespectful or somebody's just there being arrogant and you know that's happening, then interject stand up for the point and the principle and not just oh, because she's female and you're trying to come like a knight in shining armor. Chivalry is still alive, but in your own relationships or environments, whether it's with my sisters, my wife, girlfriend, whoever it may be, it's a matter of later on she might bring it to your attention or someone might bring it to your attention. So even though that moment may have passed that you need to be a man and go back and address this situation and own up to the fact that once again, I was wrong. Because that's another topic, difficult thing to say. And it's difficult it takes a real man to be able to come back. And for many reasons, because you might think, if I come back here now, yes, I might have won the battle, but I'll lose the war. But ultimately it's like, well, the other points I was making maybe mute at this particular point, null and void because she may then use that as ammunition against me. Like somebody commits a crime or does something or a lawyer. And then you find out later on that there was some sort of corruption involved. All the cases at that point have to be reopened. And men, sometimes I am guilty of that as well, may not want to go back to that particular situation. So what I do is I make sure the next time I'm cognizant, okay, so I don't address the first one, not always, not always, but the second time I'll be more cognizant or when I'm addressing other people about that particular thing. [00:18:55] Speaker C: So I will say, because so many things came up, I think something that is important to bring up as well, because you'll say a real man should XYZ. And I think as soon as I hear that, for me, I was brought up, you will know Sophie. And Sophie is the easy sister. Ada is the easy, fiery one that I used to fight with all the Ada, they will know. My sisters, my sister and me used to fight a lot. And it was a very, very adversarial relationship when we were younger. But now, to this day, and even now, we could fight. We fight plenty more than me and Sophie. But I am most grateful for Aidani way that she challenged me, because she challenged the way that I perceive things. So when we say like a real man should, why is it that we feel like we need to encase? Why do we need to prove that we are men? And we kind of make a rigid idea of what being a man is. And I don't want to come for stag or anything, but like, debair, but they'll have signs saying, Buckle up, be a real man. We had to kind of brainwash people into just using a seatbelt. You had to be a real man to use it's. Okay, just wear seatbelt because it's safe. But I get it because we're trying to appeal to say it's an audience perspective is so important. Now, if we're talking about man's planning, we're talking about we should want to access how a woman might feel, why she would say something like that. Now, we discussed earlier, he went to school in Baltimore. I'm a Trinidadian. He's a Trinidadian. If I told him, like, yeah, it's tough being a Trinidadian in Baltimore, he might kind of look at me and be like, we have some differences in our indelible experiences. You and I look very differently. You're not going to get treated the same way. So for me, it's like, it's the idea of perspective being important. So I could dismiss a woman if it is that I feel like she's disrespecting me, she's saying I'm man explaining something. But why is she saying that? As you would have said earlier, she's feeling disrespected. And perspective is so important, why is it coming? Because I could pretend that I understand and can appreciate exactly what you've experienced in your life. Because I could understand some concepts, but that doesn't mean I can really appreciate what it's like to be Johansey in all the places that you've been, especially places that we would have both been separately or whatever. So I think it's important for us to be like, yo, we are not women. We will never understand correct childbirth, carrying a child, having a period every single month. That baffles me to this day. If I had to get sick for a couple of days or a week every month, you all better treat me real nice, I would become homicidal, I'm sure. So it's just like, how can we observe the perspective and just try to get because we all on this Earth together, we need women. If we continue in the human race, if that's important, it's not really important for the planet, but if we deem it important so how do we get along better? [00:21:43] Speaker D: But I think the perspective is there already. But a lot of men choose not to go into their feminine side. [00:21:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:52] Speaker D: I think it's how they were raised most of the time in a traditional household. And again, that's just forced habits being repeated over and over, over generations. Right. But a lot of the times men have felt or seen the perspective and they'll know they'd be like, if I were a woman, I would feel hurt in this situation. But because I'm supposed to be a man, a real man, I have to push it to the side and not show emotion. [00:22:21] Speaker A: Is that how a real man projects? [00:22:28] Speaker C: What is a real man? What is a real man? Man doesn't have femininity. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Before you go on to a new. [00:22:34] Speaker C: Point. [00:22:37] Speaker B: I'm really enjoying this because knowledge is power. And the more we understand about ourselves and even each other as men, the more control and power we could have over things. Because understanding that bias and just listening to you, even what you're seeing robert I was thinking about times where I may have mansplained or even disregarded a woman's opinion because she's a woman and because I had that concept or that paradigm. And a lot of times I think my wife brings it to my attention that what she would say. She would say if a man said it, he'd listen. True and true. In the beginning, I fight on that real harder. Right. But then other men said certain things that she said and I had empirical evidence, so I couldn't fight on it. Right. And I kind of analyzed why. And it wasn't her pussy, but even my perception of women and certain things women said. So going back with innovative power. So now that I'm aware of it, sometimes you need somebody on the outside to help you be aware. But now that we talk into you men who are watching, we could also be aware of ourselves, to be more mindful, not to be disrespectful, whether you want to call it mansplain or not, because it comes from a man is disrespect in itself. And it's really been for me, being married and even being in the company of women in leadership positions. You understand? I don't say woman because not using woman per se, but people in general give a different perspective. And if we go in woman, let's say women think differently. I just pointed out if a woman thinks differently from a man, then having a different perspective could be very useful, even as leaders. [00:24:23] Speaker A: So I want us to bring it back to mansplaining. And in the same way that we understand what mansplaining is and the impact it has on women and we want to stop it, we want to address it and we want to make them feel respected. There's also the other side of it because from the time a situation is brought up and a woman feels that disrespect their disposition and how they approach a situation after that may lead to other things which then comes down to emasculation. So a woman says something and immediately to herself or you mansplaining it now. And we've used our term so many times in this conversation, it's probably going to stick with me. Instead of me saying something about disregarding or being obnoxious, I'm going to probably use the word mansplaining going forward. But we come down to then how does that then bring about disrespect to a man where he feels not heard himself or the love? Languages are all of a sudden skewed at that particular point because a lot of times women would say people say what women want is they're very emotional. And I don't mean that in a bad way, I'm just talking about their languages. They want to be touched and men want respect from the moment you start to feel disrespected and that's either from a woman or even your peers or anybody back and out. [00:25:51] Speaker C: We're taught that we want respect. Is that the most important thing on the hierarchy? We're taught that that's what we because we want sensitivity as well. We're just taught to not desire. We're taught that it's bad to desire sensitivity. And the fact that we'll even say like that feminine because I was going to say that feminine energy, is that feminine because from the time I born I emotional. So is that a feminine and maybe it is, but whether it is or isn't, it's something that's definitely within us and something that there shouldn't be a problem with. Valuing but we teach each other, our fathers, our fathers fathers, men around us, that emotions does not for us leave that to women as if that's only a thing that women have. And of course that's a way that we indoctrinate and create each other by not giving each other that space to be emotional. [00:26:38] Speaker A: So would you say that and I'm going to give way just the fact that men want to feel like men, however we've categorized it, we're still looking for that. I don't think there's a one definition fit all when it comes to what men are. Because like you said, in the same way men think differently from women, men among men think differently. So therefore when I say among women think differently exactly. [00:27:04] Speaker D: Well, I wanted to go you making a point and I wanted to just popped into my mind of to showcase how balanced men and women are right back to not having a superior or the other women as we just rightfully explained on his panel can take more physical pain than men. Right. [00:27:25] Speaker B: Men are more and that thing that's scientifically. [00:27:27] Speaker C: That's actually. [00:27:31] Speaker D: However, men are physically stronger than women. Right. [00:27:35] Speaker C: On mass on average, stronger. [00:27:37] Speaker B: Scientifically proven. Generally. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Men on the whole, yes. [00:27:45] Speaker D: What I believe, though, and I don't think that this is scientifically proven is that men have a higher emotional threshold than women. [00:27:55] Speaker C: I wouldn't be surprised. [00:27:56] Speaker A: Hold that thought again. Niall, we seem to stop on, your know, he's point banton today. So that's a big one. Big enough for us to take another breather and come back with that conversation. So in the final moments of manhood, this conversation and things are heating up. I'm about to cry because Niall is saying that men have but I would think just to say, if there's a breakup, I think you always hear that men women should sort of deal with it. They deal with it, they cry, they do whatever they need to do, whether it takes a year, six months, a week, whatever the case may be, and then they move on. And then it's like that man is ayo pancho. Whereas men just sort of linger. They're somewhere in the ether with regards to what happens. And somehow they always feel they can get attacked back. I don't know. By the same time, I've had a couple of breakups and it was pain. Yeah, I felt that pain. [00:29:07] Speaker B: Explain exactly what you mean by please. Men have a higher emotional threshold. [00:29:11] Speaker D: Well, I go in by numbers. Right. They have to have a reason why most suicides are men. Right. Most depression are men. And I feel that society on a whole, men have a lot more. Let me retract that as men and the traditions that we've been taught, we have a lot of issues that we have to deal with. And most times we've been taught to be as stoic as possible in the face of adversity. Right. And me comparing it to women, where a woman would get she will shout, she would scream immediately. Where a man might not. Most men would disagree. [00:29:58] Speaker C: And I'm talking about myself, I think. [00:30:02] Speaker D: Generalization no, but not general. No. [00:30:05] Speaker C: Screaming the numbers is depression. [00:30:09] Speaker D: No, you're right with the lack of a better word. But I want to touch on equality, right. And show that everything is a young and young where we physically are stronger. Women could tolerate more pain physically, however, where we might be emotionally stronger. Right. [00:30:27] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:30:28] Speaker B: No, go ahead. [00:30:31] Speaker D: Women would know. We take the pain. In other words, the childbirth that women go through, we deal with it in silence on our emotional side. And that's why I try to show where we are the same creatures, just we have different processing processes. [00:30:46] Speaker C: I know. [00:30:47] Speaker A: That's what you get. [00:30:48] Speaker B: You see, that beautiful. That's the beauty in this thing. That's why I don't know. Why do you have to be only fighting? Why always had to be a. Fight because women have the beauty and the way they process things on men. Because even in that point, women, let's just say traditionally they feel emotion, they emoted, they let it out, right? The energy is used and it's gone, and they're good, right? So let's just say that less of an emotional threshold. If we go, but then we men hold on to it and then we kill we self, right? So then that's not healthy either way. [00:31:25] Speaker D: True. [00:31:26] Speaker B: Bluting it out without managing it is not healthy in it either way. And hold on to it and eat and be self is not healthy either way. So just like if we go in with equality, equality means equal balance. Therefore, as men, we should aim to be balanced, right? And I'm not going masculine feminine energy. Just as a man managing yourself to be balanced, as a woman managing yourself to be balanced. So it's not necessarily, for me, a case of who could do it better, but really understanding that difference. And first getting to that difference, we need to explore some of these things. Because if a man think a woman not Woody or not knowledgeable or something, there's some kind of imbalance there. So it has to be identified, right? And then exposed. But at the same time, let me just do this thing together. And I know we have a lot of issues and listen, I have clients coming. I know we have issues. And I'm not perfect either, right? I have some workout, right? But I think the aim of the working at all, the aim of even exposing man's plane, even hearing a woman say that the aim should be not fighting because we could fight this battle forever. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Of course, I am just stuck on the whole thing about men still being more you put it in good context. But I'm still going on Niall's point that there's a perception because he's not alone. I'm sure a lot of people out there feeling the same way. Because, again, people think differently. They react differently. We were having a conversation at one point when we talk about polyamorous being polyamorous, polyamorous and things like that, there are men who'll be okay with that. There's men who say, listen, once we have an accord and we have an understanding and we let each other know it's okay. And another man would be like, no, as a man, I don't want another man with my woman. So what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. And I'm saying in this case, say, for example, a breakup. Men generally, in the breakup, as their heart is breaking, is also thinking to themselves, what that woman doing? Let's be honest. So there's that ego that's involved. And you always hear people say that ego and heart can't live in the same space, the black wolf and the white wolf. So is it then that we are coming from that emotional perspective was really ego to say, you different. Your conversations, you and I have your perception on a lot of different things. But I'm too, more generally, you're thinking, okay, well, if she's going out there, what's happening with this particular person? Is she going to fall for that? And a certain amount of ego takes place there. So therefore, I'm challenging the fact that are we really emotionally stronger or are we actually also weaker? Because women, once they cut you off. [00:34:20] Speaker C: We'Re talking a lot of hypotheticals women once they did it, because not every woman will do that. Correct. But what I think might be important, what could be productive, is I'd love to give an example. So between me and my sister, I'd mentioned earlier we've had some legendary fights, probably maybe a decade ago. I was posting something on social media. It was around a time that there was a lot of sexual violence against women. And I'd posted something saying, fellas, imagine if this was your sister, your daughter, your niece, your mother, your whatever. We need to protect women. And my sister had come to me, and she was like, you have to stop explaining things like that. Like, we don't need men to protect us. And I was like, Why are you attacking me on this? But wait, I did not understand. I did not understand she is a human being. And I didn't understand that day that we fought. I didn't understand the following day or the week after, the month after. I didn't understand until years later that we're talking about a human with indelible rights. Women shouldn't have to be antirape ninjas. They should be able to walk out their door and feel like someone will not harm them because of the way that we view each other in society, because of equality and respect and whatnot. And then also because, let's say for those who will not respect that, because the rule of the land is robust enough that the consequences would be too dire for that to be a normal thing. And we all know women, and I'm sure all of us could ask any woman that we know, do you generally feel safe when you leave your house? The common answer is no. And we could try and say that they're just making a bigger deal of, but why is this so common? And for me, that fight I had with my sister when she was like, a woman shouldn't have to be familiar to you for her to deserve respect and bodily safety. I don't walk nowhere worrying about man or woman. Someone doing something to me. And I guess I'm also of a certain height and weight, and I'm also a white male. Like, I'm generally not going to be afraid, but people who are not obviously all men women, why are they saying these things? And for me, I realized that I used to view it in such an intensely ignorant way, and I didn't realize because I thought I was saying the right thing. I thought I was saying let's protect women. But women shouldn't need men to protect them. They should just be able to feel safe. We should be evolved in a society where we as men, whether it might not be any of us at this table, but there are men who very casually will harm women when they don't do exactly what they say. And it could be from a comment or shout into a physical lash, whatever. [00:36:47] Speaker A: It is, you know what I mean? [00:36:49] Speaker C: And how do we yeah, to mansplain and we feel emasculated when why are we feeling emasculated by something that shouldn't necessarily hurt us? Because we have all these rules for each other that we've all collectively decided as a society. You want to be a real man, buckle up. Just buckle up because it's safe. You shouldn't have to abuse me into being safe. Just consider how casual and strange that is. That an artist saying like be a man, buckle up. [00:37:16] Speaker A: So, Will, as your only topic, I'm going to let you lead with closing thoughts. A lot happened here today, a lot on this table as normal. If you want to probably expand or. [00:37:27] Speaker C: Close on, I would be more curious to hear your answer in response because I have been knowing that he's the person who has more efficacy than me with it. [00:37:37] Speaker B: He's our guy. I have more efficacy. I mean, we all hear as men and we all have different experiences, right? And even though my training is different from you all, you all still have the training of life. So I think every month so have their contribution. But I understand what you mean by that. What I would say is, again, knowledge is power. The more we discuss this, the more we are able to do better. And I think that's the conversation, even how the term mansplaining was originated was maybe by a woman who want different from her man or men. [00:38:13] Speaker C: Yeah, frustrated. [00:38:14] Speaker B: Right. And even though we don't like the term, it still has validity because we understand the things at time that we do in terms of disrespect, et cetera. And if we come into even equality and we try to decide who more superior and who not, I mean, again, I still on the fence. I want empirical evidence to see. But let's just say we don't know who's superior. We think one superior and we think. [00:38:38] Speaker C: Is that the right question anyway? [00:38:40] Speaker B: Maybe not. Even if somebody's superior, let's just say either male superior or woman superior. Still, each person should treat each other with respect, right? And I think as a core tenant, respect means you have a complaint. At least I will hear you out. [00:38:58] Speaker C: Listen, I agree with you, right? [00:39:00] Speaker B: So at least I hear you out and then I could decide whether or not well, okay, yes, I was mansplaining so I could do different and then I could actually tell you, no, you know what? I agree with that. I disrespected you. But when you're expressing it, don't use terms specific to gender. Because sometimes, and not leading too much to another point is when a man is told he's wrong because he's a man, that's where emasculation could come in. So tell me I'm wrong, you disrespect me. All right, I've taken that. But because he is a man, you disrespect me. Because he is a man. These are the things wrong with you then. Some men have the tendency to feel emasculated. And I myself have felt that way because being told that in a specific manner, that was great. [00:39:45] Speaker D: Closing statements for me. I would say that there is no such thing as a superior gender. I would say that if it is that the purpose is to cut a board, you could do it with a hammer and you could do it with a saw. So every situation is needed for whoever is the use at the time, right? So women have their uses, men have their uses. We just have to find that common denominator and just to talk to the people at home. When you all are having arguments with each other, we have to stop generalization because that tends to get flung out very easily. Unproductive you're speaking to each other at that particular time. It may sound like he's talking dong to you, but it's not that he's talking down to you. From a man's perspective, this is the person, this is your peer, this is who you're choosing to talk to at the time. Right? So keep that in mind when we all having those heated moments because I realize that's where the real issues come out, right? In those heated moments where we're supposed to have our thinking caps on and with that equality for everyone. [00:41:01] Speaker A: Some really great stuff. A lot of thought provoking stuff here today. And remember, to everyone that's listening, these are not always the opinion of everyone that sits at this table. We're talking the topics that need to be spoken about. And it's us being a representative to be able to have that dialogue, to get that information out and be thought provoking. To get you yourself who's listening to, as we've said, in many different ways, when you know better, do better. Knowledge is power. And remember, just to touch on what Niall said just now, just to sort of end this particular conversation. When you're having these discussions or arguments or heated debates, remember the person, whether it's he is not the problem, she is not the problem. The problem is the problem. And you should come together as a team to address the problem and just see it just as that. So it's not necessarily mansplaining. There's emasculation, there's all of these things that happen as a result, but it's the problem that needs to be focused on. And both the male and female coming together to deal with that. Niall. Johanse will. Always a pleasure. A lot still needs to be discussed. There'll be these conversations each and every week. Thank you for staying with us. [00:42:24] Speaker B: Thank you.