← My So-Called Midlife with Reshma Saujani
Loading summary
Transcript162 lines
- [00:01]
Reshma Sajani
Today's episode is supported by what Should I Do with My Money? An original podcast from Morgan Stanley. Let's be honest, money can make people feel insecure. That's why I love this podcast.
- [00:11]
Becky
It takes the fear out of talking.
- [00:13]
Reshma Sajani
About money by letting you listen in on real, unfiltered conversations between people asking big financial questions and the advisors who help them figure it out. It's smart, it's emotional, and it just might make you feel braver about your own money story. I just listened to the episode about the price tag of parenthood on what Should I Do with My Money? And it hit me hard. Every parent I know is doing the same math. How do we give our kids the best without burning ourselves out? This conversation lays it all out. It's smart, it's relatable, and it reminds us that financial planning is part of caregiving. Definitely worth a listen. Search for what Should I Do with My Money in your podcast player. We'll also include a link in the show notes. Thank you to what Should I Do with My Money? And Morgan Stanley for their support.
- [01:00]
Becky
There's one thing that all people on earth have in common. We move through the world in a human body. Bodies ache. They bleed, they desire. They hold the stories of our lives. International Planned Parenthood Federation, or ippf, is sharing some of those stories from around the world. Read them now at ippf.org/everybody Lemonade hey midlifers. Just a quick message before we get started. You can now listen to every episode of My so Called Midlife Ad Free with Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll also get ad free access to an exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis, Dreyfus, Fail Better with David Duchovny, and so many more. It's just $5.99 a month and a great way to support the work we do. Go ad free and get bonus content when you hit subscribe on this show. And Apple Podcasts make life suck less with fewer ads with Lemonada Premium. Welcome to My so Called Midlife, a podcast where we figure out how to stop just getting through it and start actually living it. I'm Reshma Sajani. So much of my work has been about women. Closing the gender gap in tech, fighting for equality, rewriting the script for women in midlife. But lately you want to know what I've been thinking a lot about men. About my sons, about my husband, about my father, about what it means to raise boys in a world that's just as confused about Masculinity as it is about womanhood. When I first started talking about this, some women, some of my friends pushed back. They said, look, why should we care about men when we're still fighting to be seen ourselves? I get it. But as I've learned through this work, we cannot fix what's broken for women without also fixing what's broken for men. My guest today, Gary Barker, has spent his life studying that question. He's the founder and CEO of Equimundo, and he's one of the most powerful voices reimagining manhood. Not his dominance or detachment, but his care. We talk about why so many men feel unseen and what that means for all of us. Yes, us too, ladies. And how empathy just might be the bridge back to connection. Let's get into it. Welcome. Gary, my friend. You are the second man I've had on the show, so congratulations.
- [03:38]
Reshma Sajani
Thank you.
- [03:38]
Becky
No pressure, no pressure. But. So I'm going to give you the same treatment I give all my ladies who come on show, which is the first question I ask is, what is your midlife mindset? So, like, some folks are like, oh, my God, it's amazing. I don't give a shit about anything anymore. Some people are like, my knees hurting this morning. Everything feels creaky. Like, where are you?
- [03:57]
Gary Barker
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm in California, which is where I'm from. It feels like, you know, health in the world is in balance and the light and the temperature are perfect and all that stuff. I'm a bit older than you, Reshma, but I do find that, like, my FOMO is under control. I don't know, there's a certain younger phase where you're like, I've got to do all this stuff and I've got to be in all these rooms and on all these trips and there's somehow, like, 14 other things to do. And I now feel like I'm happy with the four of them.
- [04:21]
Becky
Yeah. Like, I'm so grateful not to be invited to things. I'm like, please don't invite me. Please don't invite me.
- [04:26]
Gary Barker
It's okay. Like, enough, right? And then, I don't know, the other is maybe an awareness around, you know, the first part of our career. We're so much around the I, right, What I have to do, what I have to achieve, what I have to get on my cv. It's all these things we have to achieve. And I find I want to say we a lot more and kind of acknowledging that, you know, all that stuff we put on our CVs that say I is really lots of other people involved.
- [04:50]
Becky
Yeah.
- [04:50]
Gary Barker
And maybe the next phase is a little bit like, no, you. You can do this, and I'm over here doing something else. But really the you, you know, handing off.
- [04:57]
Reshma Sajani
Yeah.
- [04:58]
Becky
It's so interesting you say that. I got an award last night at the ywca and I do not accept awards. Maybe partially because I, like, I just feel like I'm too young to be recognized for my work yet because I don't feel like I've accomplished anything. But secondly, I think it's the same thing. It's like, I don't need the recognition maybe in a way where I. When I was younger, I felt a little bit more insecure. Right. Like, I needed someone to be like, you did a good job.
- [05:24]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [05:24]
Becky
But I realized last night that I will say yes sometimes because I know that sometimes I needed to be in that room of women that were working on girls education in this moment where so much is being dismantled and I needed to have, like, my cup full of being in this room of sisterhood and brotherhood of people that were, like, in the fight. And then I think they needed to hear a word, and I was ready to give them a word, you know, and it's so different as to why you do things. I think when you are approaching, you know, 50 or crossing 50, then, like when you were 20 and 30.
- [05:59]
Gary Barker
Yeah, for sure. I trained in developmental psychology, and we cite Erik Erickson's notion of generativity. Right. That kind of a phase in life when you're contributing to the cause, the planet, the people around you, the community, and less kind of, you know, where am I in it all?
- [06:16]
Becky
Yeah. I'm so there. I'm so there. And it's sometimes, to be honest, it's a hard place to be because I feel very emotional now because I have so much love and empathy and fear about what's happening in our planet, in our system. So it actually, when you're. I focused, it's actually less heavy than when you. Are we focused. Yes.
- [06:38]
Gary Barker
Yeah. You kind of feel responsible for the grand. You and everybody else, like, get on with it. Yeah.
- [06:44]
Reshma Sajani
It is.
- [06:45]
Gary Barker
Right. You got an organization, you got a family, you got an extended family.
- [06:49]
Becky
Yeah. And to think about what's happening with them. So I have been, like, digging into all things Gary over the past two weeks, and I re. Listened to your TED Talk. And so for our listeners who don't know you, I just found that story you tell when you open it so beautiful about what you experienced as a young Boy. And what many ways led you to this work? Take me back to that scene that you describe at the beginning of your TED Talk, which is in many ways, I think, what inspired what you do at Ewa Mundo.
- [07:15]
Gary Barker
Yeah, so I'm in LA at the moment. We did an event in Hollywood High School last night, taking a group of screenwriters through, thinking about being a young person, and particularly about young men and a feeling of isolation. And so, you know, it did take me back to what I talk about in my TED Talk and kind of where I got to in this space. Kind of two big things or factors in my childhood that led to this one was witnessing a school shooting. And I talk about that in the ted talk of 100 plus of us in a cafeteria, a young man who we knew standing up in the front and begin shouting at the other guy, you took my. You my girlfriend and you're gonna pay. And he executed him in front of us. I mean, it was at the beginning of this whole wave of school shootings four decades back.
- [08:02]
Becky
Yeah, that was like 1977, right?
- [08:03]
Gary Barker
Yeah, 77. And now we have, you know, now we call them all kinds of things and we have names and we have actor shooter drills and. But then it was kind of teachers, absolutely unprepared, send us back to class. There was no conversation.
- [08:17]
Reshma Sajani
You're kidding me.
- [08:17]
Becky
They sent you back to class?
- [08:18]
Gary Barker
Yeah, no processing of it. You know, spontaneously what happened. Girls cried and they. And I could comfort my girlfriend and that was kind of my excuse to have a hug, give a hug, to feel like we just, you know, we witnessed this tragic act of a brutal murder in front of us and we didn't stop to kind of. What did that mean? My guy friends, people talked about what happened. Right. What was the gun caliber? Who was it? Not the. What did we feel about it that we had just witnessed?
- [08:48]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [08:49]
Becky
Were you scared?
- [08:50]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [08:50]
Gary Barker
Yeah. The fear of it, the feeling of like, how dare. You know, the anger around you destroyed my sense of safety. Right. Of the space I'm supposed to be safe. My parents couldn't really talk about it. And, you know, there was. It was probably a couple of decades later that someone asked me, how did you feel about it?
- [09:07]
Becky
And what did you say?
- [09:08]
Gary Barker
Well, first I cried.
- [09:09]
Becky
Twenty years later, when someone asks you how you feel, that's when you let it go.
- [09:13]
Gary Barker
Yeah. When, when my parents, you know, my parents. My parents were sort of silent about it. They didn't ask more questions. And I don't, you know, I. I know the challenges of being a parent. So I don't want to. You know, I. I think I could look back years later and just go, they felt helpless and like they had failed as parents and that it was kind of too harsh for them even to be able to look at. And now, as a parent, I can understand how they felt. Like we couldn't do anything. We felt responsible, and yet we couldn't do anything. And so silent kind of took over. But the decade and a half later or so when I talked about it was like finally I could cry about it and then make sense of the feeling of it and in some way make a lot of connections of why did I go work on trauma and why did I feel not necessarily safe. But I. You know, I've worked in war zones and I've worked in the most violent neighborhoods, in Bogota, where I worked for a number of years, in Brazil, where I worked for the most number of years. And not that I ever was trying to put myself in harm's way, but just to think, you are not safe where you think you're safe. It is my duty, or I felt the kind of a duty of, I will be here and be witness with others who are experiencing other kinds of violence that are far bigger and out of control than what I experienced. But a feeling of, you know, if you're not safe in the place where you most thought you were safe, it did sort of open up a. I need to be there next to people who are also going through violence that doesn't get named and called out. And so working with young men in favelas in Rio, working with young women, survivors of sexual violence in Recife and other parts of Latin America, that was what called me in. And the other that I had next to this is a father who was a social worker. My siblings are adopted foster children in our household all the time. And my dad, even if not full of lots of feeling words, his vocation and his cause was careful.
- [11:04]
Becky
And that's really how you started really focusing.
- [11:06]
Gary Barker
Those are my through lines.
- [11:08]
Becky
One of the things I thought was really powerful was at the end of your TED Talk, you talked about what this young man had been going through. Yeah, tell us about that.
- [11:18]
Gary Barker
So, you know, again, things that you kind of pay attention to years later. I had known him in probably, I don't know, fifth grade or something. And just remember, he was like, you wanted to stand on the other side of the hall as he was coming back. Just like that. That bully energy, right? And it was easy to, at that age, to think, you know, just, you know, what A jerk and what, you know, all the words you want to put there and just like, really, come on, get. You know, what a loser. All the judgments that we put. And then also remembering moments like if he was in a class of mine and he was having reading difficulties, and it was all on the kind of the individual failure. Just like, he's not fitting in, he's.
- [11:57]
Becky
Not smart, he doesn't fit in.
- [11:59]
Gary Barker
And then later you get pieces together of like, oh, there was shit going on in his household.
- [12:04]
Reshma Sajani
Yeah.
- [12:04]
Gary Barker
Kind of took me some years and a PhD and all the rest to go. Well, you know, men's anger is often a boy's anger. Men's anger is often. It's a lack of words. It's a lack of being able to make sense of what's happening to them. It's the language that we're permitted as men that are not. I need help, you know, and it's.
- [12:22]
Becky
A lack of affection and love. I mean, I got two little boys and like, I'm always touching them, hugging them and kissing them and you know what I mean? And listen, I didn't grow up that way. Like, I grew up in a very Asian household where I, like, there was no I love you. You know, we sometimes say it now, but now I give a weird side hug because I just never really learned how to hug. Everyone makes fun of me about it. So we just showed affection in different ways. Right? And so with my boys, I'm just very, very, very intentional about it. But you know what I loved? I think just the consciousness of recognizing of what people are going through, but also what many men and young men are going through. And that's why I wanted to have you on the show. Because, listen, a lot of the women that are listening in this show are navigating midlife, right? And our partnership and parenthood. And it's hard. And sometimes they're like, what I gotta think about the men. We're gonna talk about this because I know you hear this too, but we all have men in our lives. I have two boys I love, a husband I love. And I was going through, you know, your work. And I want you to share with some of the statistics. One of the ones that really blew my mind was the high percentage of suicide ideation with men on a bi weekly basis. I want people to get a baseline of, like, what is the state of men in America today?
- [13:44]
Gary Barker
Yeah, it's big and vast. We're a lot of men. There's a lot who are doing quite well and thriving and finding new ways of being and connecting to their kids in amazing ways. But think about the youngest men in the US So that's as we do our survey data and listen to young men. And I've just spent some weeks both doing focus groups and also was in Kansas, deliberately in the geographic center of the country listening to young men. And we should be worried. There is this massive confusion and crisis of connection. The three big data points that I carry around and they cause me to lose sleep. One is the two thirds who say nobody really knows me. I mean, it's kind of a normal phase of adolescent life that we feel like, you know, we're just figuring out our heads and who are we and all that stuff. And young women feel that in pretty high rates as well. It's, you know, kind of part of human existence.
- [14:31]
Becky
Nobody understands me, nobody knows me, nobody loves me.
- [14:34]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [14:34]
Gary Barker
The issue is that guys don't talk to anybody about it. A third of them don't see anybody outside their household. They report far fewer friends. They speak less to people about how they feel emotionally. And that's related to the, you know, the other stat that you decided that in the past, you know, kind of in a two week phase, young men tell us that more than 40, about 42% say they've thought about suicide.
- [14:58]
Becky
I want everyone to let that sit in for it. 42% of young men.
- [15:02]
Reshma Sajani
Yeah.
- [15:02]
Gary Barker
Think about it every two weeks.
- [15:04]
Becky
Every two weeks, yeah.
- [15:06]
Gary Barker
You know, so interviewed parents whose 14 year old killed himself after, you know, like a stupid thing that he did. But he didn't deserve to be treated the way that he was, including by law enforcement. Just that, you know, like, let's hold everybody accountable. But how do we hold accountable in a way that treats you as human? He got cut off from his social networks and to be offline for him was basically a social death. And he left this poem behind that he shared with an English teacher about the games that his friends were playing that he was left out of. And it was like I was dead on the edge of their lives. So, I mean, that's a dramatic one. But this feeling of the future feels really bleak. And young people in general feel this, right? The planet is on fire. AI. It's not. AI will come for your jobs. AI is coming for your job. It's here already. It is taking your jobs. It's a very uncertain moment. Again, we all feel that young men just don't talk to anybody about it.
- [16:02]
Reshma Sajani
Today's episode is supported by what Should I Do with My Money? An original podcast from Morgan Stanley, let's be honest. Money can make people feel insecure. That's why I love this podcast. It takes the fear out of talking about money by letting you listen in on real, unfiltered conversations between people asking big financial questions and the advisors who help them figure it out. It's smart, it's emotional, and it just might make you feel braver about your own money story. I just listened to the episode about the price tag of parenthood on what Should I Do with My Money and it hit me hard. Every parent I know is doing the same. How do we give our kids the best without burning ourselves out? This conversation lays it all out. It's smart, it's relatable, and it reminds us that financial planning is part of caregiving. Definitely worth a listen. Search for what Should I Do with My Money? In your podcast player. We'll also include a link in the show Notes. Thank you to what Should I Do with My Money? And Morgan Stanley for their support. As the air turns crisp and the holidays draw near, comfort becomes the best gift of all. Quince delivers layers that last. So sweaters, outerwear and everyday essentials that feel luxurious, look timeless and make holiday dressing and gifting effortless. Quince has it all. $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters made for everyday wear, denim that never goes out of style, silk tops and skirts that add polish. Perfect for gifting or upgrading your own wardrobe. I'm obsessed with my new 100% leather jacket. It's the perfect addition to all of my fall outfits. By working directly with ethical top tier factories, Quint skips the middlemen and offers prices 50% less than similar brands. So step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good and last. From quince Go to quince.com midlife for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U-I-N-C-E.com midlife to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com midlife.
- [18:05]
Becky
Remember when life felt lighter? When the music was good and you were just you? Well, it's time to press pause on routines and hit play on something unforgettable. The 90s cruise from January 25th through 30th, 2026 set sail onboard Celebrity Constellation, leaving from Tampa and heading to Nassau and Key West. Five days of Sunshine themed nights, concerts from tlc, Sugar Ray, better than Ezra, En Vogue and more all inclusive so your food, drinks and entertainment are taken care of. It's not just nostalgia. Sure it's the music you love, but it's also about stepping into joy, freedom, and memories that remind you who you are beyond the daily grind. Treat yourself, because after years of showing up for everyone else, this is your chance to do something unforgettable for you. Head to the 90scruise.com midlife to book now and use code MIDLIFE for $250 off new reservations.
- [19:05]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Well, hi everybody, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus from the Wiser Than Me podcast. And I'm not gonna talk about food waste this time. I'm gonna talk about food resources. All that uneaten food rotting in the landfill, it could be enriching our soil or food feeding our chickens because it's still food. And the easiest and frankly, way coolest way to put all its nutrients to work is with the MILL food recycler. It looks like an art house garbage can. You can just toss your scraps in it like a garbage can. But it is definitely not a garbage can. I mean, it's true. I'm pretty obsessed with this thing. I even invested in this thing. But I'm not alone. I any mill owner just might corner you at a party and rhapsodize about how it's completely odorless and it's fully automated and how you can keep filling it for weeks. But the clincher is that you can depend on it for years. Mill is a serious machine. Think about a dishwasher, not a toaster. It's built by hand in North America and it's engineered by the guy who did your iPhone. But you have to kind of live with MILL to understand all the love. That's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mil.com wiser for an exclusive offer.
- [20:34]
Becky
So do you think that's why it feels more intense for young men? Because they have no one to talk to about it?
- [20:39]
Gary Barker
I think that's part of it. I think. And this is the other third stat. And then I'll say why. I think that's what's going on. Third stat. There is the three quarters of men. This is all ages 18 to 45. Don't think that anyone cares if men are okay. And half of women that we surveyed said, yeah, nobody cares if men are okay.
- [20:58]
Becky
They're like, true. It's true.
- [20:59]
Gary Barker
It's not my job. Right. I'm trying to be, you know, equal in the world. I'm trying to fight for my rights as a woman to have an equal voice. I get it. And yet we need to look at that stat and say, I feel unseen. I'm not talking to anybody. And I don't really feel anyone cares about my fate. You know, I think there's that. That multiple kind of existential political moment. I think the other is, you know, you have worked on girls education. The world has. I'm father of a daughter who's now 27, and it was really cool. She was partly raised in Brazil, partly here in the US There was so many things that I could look to, including things that you've helped develop of like, Nina, do you want to, you know, do you want to code? You interested in stem? You want to do sci fi? You want to do that space camp in Florida, which she did. She could play ballerina in the morning and she could talk about astronaut stuff. At the end of the day, the world said, you can be anything. And it was really fun. We're not done with that. But the world sort of said, all the scripts available in the world are for you. None should be denied you. And lots of folks she could look up to of like empowered women. And I want to be like her. And I think about our sons today. And there's so much that we define manhood that is about the bad. You know, there's so much that young men feel like they've been held accountable for a world that they stepped into that was already unequal. We can call out guys for harm and we must still do that. Right. That cause is not done. But I don't know what we've done that builds the new space that says, here's what you can aspire to be.
- [22:28]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [22:29]
Becky
So it's funny where I saw this play out, I wrote a piece called Men are Struggling, here's why Women Should Care.
- [22:35]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [22:36]
Becky
And it was very simply saying, well, I'm glad you did because I got like 3,000 comments from my sisters being like, f that, you know what I mean? And it was very simply just saying, we can have empathy. And I was just blown away, Gary, that we were debating having empathy for a young boy or young man who is lonely or having suicide idea. I mean, how have we gotten here and then how can we not have empathy there but expect people to have empathy when there's an ice raid you. I mean, in Chicago, because to me it's how are we treating people? How do we feel when someone is suffering? It was just such an eye opener that, you know, men have been bought into this con that like when. When women rise, I fall. So I got to pull them down.
- [23:22]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [23:23]
Becky
And, you know, women have been bought into this con that, like, you know, if I care for them, that means that I give up something for myself.
- [23:30]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [23:31]
Becky
And how did that happen? And like, how do we fight, get our way out of this? And what, like, what have you seen as you've been going around the world? Because I think that gender relations in the United States are an all time low. Like, we talk about race relations in our country, but we need to also, like, really talk about gender relations, because I think that is where the real disconnection, where I'm really, really seeing it. And really we're really feeling the impact of this.
- [23:58]
Gary Barker
Yeah, I mean, it's really challenging in a, you know, individualistic, I got to, I got to look out for myself world. Right. That feels like there's not enough to go around. So I'm always trying to get enough for myself. And then what is my team? And so, you know, if you're team women, they're like, yeah, you want to be team women? Of course, team men, we've been told no, you should feel kind of awkward about that because team men has been winning forever. And so you shouldn't get to everything. It's a vacuum, not a flourishing. And I think even our field, gender equality is a low threshold. Gender equality could be. We all feel suicidal, we all are facing air pollution at equal amounts or whatever. Human flourishing is where we should be stepping into. And so I do think even the whole field that I created Equimundo in and that your work has been in has been, we're looking at these numbers to try to achieve some equality. But the equality is in a system that is fundamentally flawed in terms of who it gives lots to and who it gives less to. And somehow, you know, to step into a, we can only do this together. I'm more inspired by some of the kind of indigenous understandings of the cosmovision that say, you know, I am because you are. If you think of Ubuntu as that definition, or the indigenous South America, particularly the Andean region, that has a notion of buen vivir, that we all live well together, live well in connection to the planet, live well in connection to others. And then it's less about, do I have two more cows than you have, or do I have two more cars in my garage than you have? And how do we get along and how do we acknowledge our connection to others? The other piece to be thought about is the Roman definition of property and how we own things, which is like in our heads in the west, is that I, I Possess it. It's mine eternally and I can destroy it. Those are the three components of Roman, the Roman law notion of ownership. Most pre modern societies, they had patriarchy too. But when ownership passes to a man, mostly a man, let's question that too. But when it passes to him, ownership means care. I've got to till it, I've got to care for it, I've got to cultivate it. And it's not considered mine permanently. It's considered mine for the time that I'm in charge of it. So, you know, I think it puts us in a world that says it's not about how much I own and how much is for me, but I'm in this with others. So I guess just as at a feeling level, I don't think you are less a feminist if you care if men are okay. It is not a football match.
- [26:35]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [26:36]
Becky
I really felt in reading those comments, I'm like, wow, patriarchy has really swallowed us alive.
- [26:40]
Gary Barker
Yeah, all of us. Right?
- [26:42]
Becky
All of us. Because we forget women. Women are basically conned by patriarchy too. I think part of what is so baked into like the American DNA of what it means to be a man is that men are measured by their worth and their income and their status. And we're living in a government that is like double downing on that. And the cultural messages that we're sending on social media in 2025 is like, is all about that. And when you look at the data, it's like, Gen Z boys are the ones who think women's rights have gone so far. I mean, it's so sad, right? I was listening to one of your podcasts that you did, and it for Ms. Magazine, it was like, actually the boys are more traditional than their fathers.
- [27:24]
Gary Barker
Dads. Yeah, yeah.
- [27:25]
Becky
Than their dads. So they didn't learn it from their dads. It's not how they're seeing that their dads are treating their mothers. It is actually we have gone. The pendulum has swung back. I mean, 57% of Gen Z men think that the nation has gone too far in promoting women's equality and are discriminating against men.
- [27:43]
Gary Barker
Yeah. And it's hard on that one. So if you've been an activist, you know, looking at the world's still uncompleted journey to create up, you know, equality for women and girls. You look at that and go, you know what stupid guys? Like, how stupid could they be?
- [27:57]
Becky
Yeah.
- [27:57]
Gary Barker
That's not a conversation starter, right?
- [27:59]
Reshma Sajani
No.
- [27:59]
Gary Barker
You know, rather than saying, how did we make this zero sum game approach that feels like women's wins are men's losses.
- [28:06]
Reshma Sajani
And.
- [28:07]
Gary Barker
And women worried that if men, you know, flourish and do well, that somehow they're not going to. Right. And, you know, yes. There are boards. Right. There's 12 seats on a board. If we need equality there, and there's nine men. Three men are going to lose their seats on a board.
- [28:21]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [28:21]
Gary Barker
Those three men. That is what equality takes, dude. You got to. You got to do it. Right. There are spaces like that where it is zero sum. The rest of it is like, we got to get along.
- [28:31]
Becky
Yeah. And there's plenty of seats for everyone.
- [28:33]
Gary Barker
And there's plenty of seats. And we need to build one another one to pull around the table.
- [28:36]
Becky
But let me ask you something. Do you think, though, I think about this because, listen, I have a million shirts in my closet. The future is female. Fuck the patriarchy. Like, I mean, I was like. Would be clad in, like, you know, my girlboss attire, and I don't think I would buy those shirts anymore because I actually don't think that they're helpful.
- [28:53]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [28:54]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [28:54]
Becky
I do think we have to own a little bit that I can understand how the right grab them, how they could look at that. And like you said, two thirds of men say, nobody cares about me or it has empathy for me. And before I would be like, that's not true. And then I looked at my comment section when I wrote that post, and I'm like, oh, I get it. We sold that on the left. We really, really did. And so what is the language now? Because I think sometimes we. My. My son always tells me this. Like, we over rotate. Like, we. We're only talking about women now. We're only talking about men. And we're only. We over rotate. Like, what is the middle?
- [29:29]
Gary Barker
Yeah. And I worried at times as well. Right. We're writing a lot and studying a lot, this crisis with men. And that's why I started a bit at the beginning to say lots of guys are doing quite well.
- [29:40]
Reshma Sajani
Yeah.
- [29:40]
Gary Barker
And stepping in with patients and learning how to be different. And one of the demographic trends that works in our favor is that we have smaller families now and the cost of childcare is a huge problem in the US but it also means that men are feeling in some ways kind of equally. Not quite equally yet, but getting there. The stress of caring for a child. And the stress, though, also comes with just the amazing joy that comes with doing more caregiving of the humans around us in our homes. So, you know, I'm seeing lots of men Step in and flourishing and finding a way forward. And it's why, you know, you'll see so many of our campaigns and studies are all about care. Like, just what is it that will get men through? So much of our work started around trying to prevent men from doing something. From occupying and abusing power to using violence, to not supporting their partners and doing something. It was all about the not the don'ts. And so we tried to say, well, what is the thing that we fill in that says, men, here's a North Star for you to go toward healthy masculinity sounds like, drink enough water and do your exercise and all that kind of stuff. It sounds hygienic. So we don't think that's a very good phrasing. But care was the word that just resonated a lot with men. Talk to a 13 year old who seems like monosyllabic writing. Like you're having trouble getting him to look up from his game and you can't tell, you know, does he have an emotional thought? Is he talking about anything? Ask him what he thinks about his friends. You know, he's got at least probably got two or three of them. You may think he's doing a first person shooter game, which he is, but in the chat, he may actually be talking with his friend. And even if they're talking about did you see me blow it away on level three, they're having a conversation there. And if you ask him what he cares about, he's probably able to articulate, I care deeply about that friend.
- [31:24]
Becky
Yeah, they care. Men care about their tribe sports connection.
- [31:28]
Gary Barker
We care about our mom because mostly our moms have been, you know, the source of most of our affection. Not only there's lots of great dads, but, you know, ask a 13 year old about, tell me who cares about you? And like, mom will come up. You know, I'm happy to hear when dads come up. But most of the time it's, you know, we're told we can't show that to you because we're supposed to be tough and kind of independent. But of course, that 13 year old, you know, even as he grunts at you in the morning, having been one of those, like, you know, just this deep affection for our moms or those who care for us, like there is a beating heart underneath there. A lot of older guys, it's gonna be tough for you to get through that shell. And it's not surprising that one of the highest divorce rates in the moment in the US is above 50.
- [32:10]
Becky
Why is that not surprising?
- [32:11]
Gary Barker
Well, not surprising. Cause I think the generation that I am has had such a trouble of just being emotionally present.
- [32:17]
Becky
So, you know, a lot of what we're talking about, Gary, is this for, you know, a lot of the women on this show. It's like that we are trying to figure out, like, what does my midlife look like? How can I. So what does that look like for men? Like, what are the kinds of conversations that men are having at this stage in terms of making these kinds of shifts? Because, you know, as Becky said, it's like, it's hard if you've been raised a certain way. Generationally, it's like baked in our d. It's like in the water. How do you make this kind of shift? I mean, listen, I always say, like, you know, my dream is, like, for LeBron James to be doing the laundry in a Super bowl ad. It's like you're changing major, major kind of cultural norms and the way you've been raised, how do you do that?
- [32:57]
Gary Barker
I mean, you know, I don't think that most men are waking up in the morning thinking that's the thing we want to change the most. I mean, that's maybe where we have an impasse between men and women. I want men to do those things, but to make the extra 10 minutes of care work. The social justice argument in our household every day, I just don't think is getting us better as couples.
- [33:15]
Becky
Right.
- [33:15]
Gary Barker
And I say that as an organization that, like, put out there this global men care campaign. And. And I cite that data that men.
- [33:21]
Becky
You know about doing the laundry.
- [33:23]
Gary Barker
Yeah. If we as men did 25 minutes more and women did 25min minutes less, we'd sort of get to equal. And then I joke and say, man, that's one Netflix episode that you could give up. It doesn't resonate with men.
- [33:34]
Reshma Sajani
No.
- [33:35]
Becky
Okay, wait, so what does resonate?
- [33:36]
Gary Barker
Well, I don't know if I'd give it up, but maybe there's other pathways through it, which is the moment that we need to get to as men, that we feel a little bit less like we're judged by the provider stuff. Is that the only thing we are what we earn or accomplish? Right. Can we be comfortable being with others and not the doing all the time? Right. Do we have a couple of friends that we feel we can actually open up with and not just, you know, how the Commander's doing, how the Oreos doing this season? Did you see that game? That can be fun stuff, but, like, is that an opening that we also just have guys. It can also be friend girls, you know, whatever. Friend women apart from our partner. Because I think too much. Men lay all of our emotional lives in our partner. So I think we do need somebody.
- [34:21]
Becky
Other people.
- [34:22]
Gary Barker
Other people. Yeah. You know, as a woman in a relationship, I like, you know, is your male partner emotionally connected to your child? I mean, I care that, you know, he knows how to. He knows the name of the teacher and as our friend Eve Rodsky will say, that he knows the name of the dentist and the phone number. Sure, I care about that too. But is he emotionally connected to your.
- [34:42]
Becky
Does he know when he's sad, right when he comes in, he's like, oh, he's a little off today.
- [34:46]
Gary Barker
Yeah, I don't think it's women's job to teach that to men.
- [34:52]
Becky
There's one thing that all people on earth have in common. We move through the world in a human body. Bodies ache, they bleed, they desire, they hold the stories of our lives. And when people have power over their bodies, when they can access the care their bodies need, they can begin to write their own stories. International Planned Parenthood Federation, or ippf, is the world's largest network for sexual and reproductive health rights and justice. They are sharing real stories of people around the world. People like Alina in Malawi who walked miles to the nearest clinic to birth her baby, only to give birth along the way. Everybody holds a story and you can read just a few of them now@ippf.org.
- [35:38]
Reshma Sajani
Everybody this is the time of year my friends love to throw dinner parties. But I've gotten so tired of showing up with the same bottle of wine from the grocery store. That doesn't excite me or anyone at the table. Sometimes I wish I had a personal sommelier to guide me to find the best wines I normally wouldn't be able to access. Sommsation's expert team does just that. They seek out incredible wines from top independent producers that I can't get from the store. They aren't mass produced wines. They're handcrafted with care. Using pure ingredients and meticulous winemaking. Their team of sommeliers curates the selection. So you're getting wines that redefine what exceptional tastes like. Whether you want a single bottle, a guided tasting experience, or an entire wine club membership. Sommsation makes it easy to elevate your wine experience. You won't just be giving wine, you're giving someone their next favorite bottle. Shop their wines@simsation.com mysocalledmidlife that's s o n m s a s t-I o-n.com mysocalledmidlife is it just me or are.
- [36:46]
Chelsea Clinton
Things actually really scary right now? In the world of public health, every day brings another confusing headline. Or yet again, a far fetched claim. Vaccines are somehow up for debate and parents are scrolling TikTok for medical advice. I'm Chelsea Clinton, an advocate, author, investor, teacher, and mom. Navigate this insane time right alongside you. I hope you'll join me on my new podcast, that Can't Be True, a show that sorts fact from fiction, especially on issues impacting our health. From Limonada Media and the Clinton foundation, that Can't Be True is out October 2nd.
- [37:22]
Becky
God, Gary, what you're saying is so profound. It's so profound because it's so not what we're doing. It's interesting because when I was reading your work over the past couple days or just getting back into it, the first thing I kept thinking is, I gotta give Nahal a hug. That stat, about 50% of men think about suicide. Every. That was just really like, I don't know, it really tore at my heart. Like it wasn't even about the boys. It was about my husband.
- [37:52]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [37:52]
Becky
I'll say this as an activist, that's hard. Cause I'm thinking about the laundry like for a long time.
- [37:56]
Reshma Sajani
Right.
- [37:57]
Becky
But now we gotta think about the men in our lives as just humans and people and what they're going through and how society.
- [38:05]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [38:05]
Becky
Is also hurting them.
- [38:09]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [38:09]
Becky
I think the right has been talking about this in that way for a long time, but I think the left has it.
- [38:15]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [38:16]
Becky
Talk about what you think about that and like, what's been the reaction, like when you say this? Because I know when you say this to a room of our friends or people that we are in work with, I've seen some of the reactions.
- [38:27]
Gary Barker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, we want to live in a household where we feel love and happiness and cared for and seen. I'm trying to sit in a moment of patience when I've got some great women friends who are activists in the space and they'll see their data and they're like, I just don't have time to care whether men are okay. And I used to get sort of pissed at that. And maybe once every couple of years at a dinner party, I'm like, it is okay for you to care about men. And I'll raise my voice and somebody go, what's up with Gary? I couldn't do this at the office, so I did this here with a group of friends of, like, it is okay to care about men, but now I'm stepping in and saying, I'm okay if you don't. But I do, and I don't care about them. Instead of caring about you, I find that I can care about both at the same time most days, and I'm just going to lean into that and not try to fight you. And maybe the other part that you can do in midlife is I'm not trying to win an argument. I'm just trying to state very calmly, here's what I think, and I don't have to win today, and I really don't really have to win, but maybe I left you thinking about, you know, the one that. And I think I used this at the Dad's conference, which was, you know, the data point that kept hitting my head was the 40% of young men who think nobody will ever love them, will ever fall in love with them. Now young women, it's like 30%. So we're like the crash that we've created for young people that feels like we are so in our individualistic bubbles that the possibility of a mutual, satisfying, honest, intimate relationship feels impossible. That's when I feel like, as, you know, as an older generation, like, what have we done? What is this world we've created that our son, in particular, feel like Love is out of reach. It's what drives us.
- [40:12]
Becky
Well, it also matters. I mean, think about it. Like, I did it, you know, in preparation for a speech I did. I did a focus group with a bunch of young women in college, and I said, how many of you have a friend that's a male?
- [40:23]
Reshma Sajani
Zero.
- [40:24]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [40:25]
Becky
And I was shocked, right, because I had a lot of male friends, a lot of men in my life. Right. And I was always like an activist doing the same stuff I'm doing now when I was, you know, in my 20s. And so when you don't have connection, when you don't have friendship, when you don't have sex, Right. All of that breeds a tremendous amount of mistrust. Like, I can have a lot of impressions about a culture or a religion or gender, because I don't actually really know them. I mean, this is how so much of racism, I think, is, like, exacerbated, because people don't have friends that are black, brown, gay, trans. And the same thing is happening with gender. I think, Gary, it's different than when we were growing up. Yeah, I know every old person says that, but it feels that way.
- [41:10]
Gary Barker
No, I mean, there Is a difference, you know, if we look at, I mean, the economy. Susan Faludi wrote stiffed about the crisis of American men and the loss of jobs and the recession back of the late 90s, you know, similar stuff there. The difference of our online lives now. Right?
- [41:26]
Becky
Yeah.
- [41:27]
Gary Barker
You know a young man who told me, well, it used to be, you know, like for your generation, if you wanted that girl, if you're a heterosexual guy and you wanted that girl to look at you, you were compared to the other five good looking guys in the room or who you know, were clever or good at their conversation game better than you. He's like, now I'm compared to all of humanity because she can see every guy who's available online.
- [41:47]
Reshma Sajani
Right? Yeah.
- [41:48]
Gary Barker
We've commodified, you know, our relationships and dating apps and the, you know, they can be amazing on one thing of opening up.
- [41:55]
Becky
Worst thing that ever happened. Worst thing ever happened.
- [41:57]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [41:58]
Becky
I mean, I remember a Friday night, going to a bar and like the excitement of it and like, it's just.
- [42:02]
Gary Barker
Who did my friends know that? And that would be the circle that you would meet other people of like, yeah, who do they know who's going to show up at that party? That could be somebody interesting to start a conversation with. Yeah.
- [42:12]
Reshma Sajani
Yeah.
- [42:13]
Becky
I think that that's the work that I'm really excited to do with you and so happy we're working together about how are you just bringing men and women. I can't tell you. When we did the fatherhood summit together, I just remember looking in that room, Gary, and like they were just taking notes. I must have gotten, I don't know, ten handwritten notes afterwards. I never get handwritten notes and most of them said the same thing, which is like, thank you for seeing me, for not blaming me, for letting me sit and just learn. And so much of what I thought I knew, I was like, oh, I don't know shit. We need to come back and like break bread and talk and come together and again connect and find ways to have kind of empathy for what's happening to one another as a result of our own division.
- [43:04]
Gary Barker
So, yeah, agreed. Just to acknowledge how deeply relational the solutions have to be. And that's not just a wonky word, but all of our best experiments and how do we get men to be better to themselves and others have been when it's. It's not just a group of men working on themselves, you know, in a circle over here. And I think the best work with women as well. You got to talk to the Dads and brothers and the boyfriends and partners and starts at home. Yeah. Or in the social network of kind of who are the other guys around that. Yeah, you know, I can go back to my 12 year old self of the day that they come to do the conversation about menstruation and, and feminine hygiene products. And they send all the boys outside and we're trying to jump to the wind, you know, the windows, like just to hear this, to like, what's this about? And like two guys could talk about their sisters and whatever. You know, it was years later I went, if you're a heterosexual guy or a father or anybody, just a man on the planet, you need to know this about women and girls. Right. You need to know about the female body and whatever it is at the most basic level that we want to empower girls about. Boys need to be part of the conversation, not to take it over and the stuff to try to get men to be more emotionally present and all this stuff. We need women around too. We need kind of. You don't have to do the work for us, but we need you. Yeah, yeah.
- [44:21]
Becky
And to recognize like it's okay if the moment shifts and changes. So like, you know, yesterday I'm giving my little speech at the YWCA and you know, my son's with me, Sean. And he's always like, you know, lecturing me like, what about the boys? Or what about the crew? And so he was very happy at my, you know, at our summit and like, you know that mommy's talking about the boys. And again. And at first it wasn't really even just about because he wants to be in the mix. I think he was just like, mom, you're missing this piece over here.
- [44:49]
Gary Barker
So.
- [44:49]
Becky
But yesterday my whole speech was about the girls. And we walk out and he was like, mommy, you did it again. Remember? You forgot to talk about the boys. And I looked at him and I said, sean, listen, what's happening in the world right now? Like, women need to feel seen. Today was about them.
- [45:06]
Gary Barker
Yeah.
- [45:06]
Becky
And he looked at me, he was like, you're right. Yeah, that's kind of what we're trying to do. Right. Like it's okay for some moments to be like, yeah, we gotta talk about what's happening with the boys and men. And their mom was like, we gotta all be aligned on making sure that they don't erase girls education. As we close, what's next for you?
- [45:25]
Gary Barker
I'm, you know, I'm finishing a book. Well, there's actually two books in the two Books.
- [45:30]
Becky
God, I'm like working on one that's almost killing me. How are you doing too?
- [45:33]
Gary Barker
One is the nonfiction one about young men. So these stories and the data we're all writing up into kind of how the myths of manhood are really tripping up young men and what can we do about it? So a lot of just putting guys hearts out there on the page with a co author. So that's the nonfiction one moving ahead. And then I got a couple of published novels where they're almost all about men in conflict areas, war zones, and kind of finding redemption paths. And I didn't want to write about the school shooting for a long time, but my former agent said, Gary, you have to write the novel that's that's going to come out of that or your first person version. So I have a fictionalized version of that that ties it to the vigilante killings of Latinos along the border in the 1920s. And it sounds like a stretch to tie them together, but they're really so aligned.
- [46:24]
Becky
Wow. I can't wait to read this.
- [46:26]
Gary Barker
Anyway, so that's what I've been in my off time, which as you know, we don't get a huge amount of this running NGOs, but.
- [46:32]
Becky
No, I get it. I need a side hustle all the time too. As shocking as it is though, you.
- [46:36]
Gary Barker
Got to have the outlet.
- [46:37]
Becky
Another creative outlet.
- [46:39]
Gary Barker
Absolutely.
- [46:39]
Becky
Well, Gary, I loved spending time with you again and thank you for everything that you do on behalf of my boys because we need people like you.
- [46:46]
Gary Barker
And girls too. This work is for girls too.
- [46:48]
Becky
You're right, it is. It is for girls too.
- [46:51]
Gary Barker
Yeah. Thank you, Reshma.
- [47:00]
Becky
Big thanks to my friend Gary Barker for joining me today and for reminding us that empathy goes both ways. Equality, it's not a zero sum game. And I refuse to believe that it is. If this conversation resonated, share it with the men in your Life. Check out equamundo.org to learn more about Gary's work. And stay tuned for his upcoming book about reimagining manhood for the next generation. My so Called Midlife is brought to you by Moms First. Come see what we're all about at Moms First. I'm your host and executive producer, Reshma Sajani. Our senior producer is Katie Eckstet Cordova. Our producer is Beth Rowe, and our sound engineer and editor is Mary Kelly of Sweater Weather. Our theme music was composed by Ivan Kurayev and performed by Ivan with Ryan Jewell and Karen Waltock. Scheduling support from Cindy Cook, Sales and distribution is by Lemonada Media. Help others find our show by leaving a rating and writing a review and let us know what you're doing in Midlife. Follow my so Called Midlife wherever you get your podcast or listen. Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership and be sure to follow me rashmistajani and Moms first on Instagram, LinkedIn and Substack. Thank you for listening. See you next week. You know when you're just going about your busy day and a voice asks you something like why do people have crushes? Or do dogs know their dogs? The Brainzon Podcast is here to help. Every episode answers tough questions with funny skits, cool facts and more. It's a science show for kids of all ages. Whether you grew up with jfk, mtv, TLC, or tmz, Brainson is for you.
- [48:47]
Gary Barker
Listening may induce uncontrollable laughter and turn.
- [48:49]
Becky
Backseat squabbles into harmonious car trips. Find Brainson wherever you get your podcasts.