Episode 18 - Men In Skirts

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today

we're going to be talking about men in

skirts

and of course this is not a podcast that

is devoted to

the robin hood men in tights we're not

talking about that

and we're also not talking about our

friends over in scotland who wear kilts

because

let's be honest those are not skirts

those are kilts and i actually have a

kilton

we're not going to go there we're

actually going to talk more about

how maybe the way that

everybody is kind of looking at men now

has changed

over time that definition of

what a man is what men are supposed to

be

especially in this wonderful 21st

century that we live in

yeah i chose this topic

because over the last few years

i feel that the role of men has been

challenged

it's certainly changed in terms of how

they're portrayed in advertisements and

in movies

and it's almost like a

sin now to want to be a strong man

to fulfill those traditional roles and i

think i think sin

is a good word there it it it's looked

down upon for some reason something

happened

not all that long ago that made it to

where if

if you're not in touch with your

feelings if you're not a man's man

uh all of a sudden

that's a bad thing and it never was a

bad thing it was always a good

thing now it's a bad thing and it's

constantly attacked

yeah i never thought you know that song

from the 80s it's reigning men

would uh later on become a disparaging

song that women were no longer

celebrating that it was reigning men

true but um i i looked up

the definition of you know a man

on the oxford dictionary miriam webster

and the most common

definition i found well at least the

initial definition is an adult male

human being which i always thought

that's what a man is right but

there's been later additions now to

i guess qualify that statement or

quantify that statement

that it's a human being of either sex

either well i mean you can go back and

look at the bible and where it says man

really it's talking about everybody type

of thing like human

man yeah yeah humankind you know mankind

etc all man you know god gave this to

man it's really talking about man

and woman so i can understand it from

that point of view but i think the

additions

now when they say about being of either

sex

is genuinely meaning about either sex

and not in like a uh i guess a

collective

type thing makes sense you know and i

think

it well i mean you look at you look at

all the uproar which has gone on about

using the term you know policeman or

fireman it should be fire personal

police person

so the the gender specific yeah

chairman of the board right or congress

man yeah uh versus congresswoman or yeah

all that good stuff that like you say

policeman firemen

that was just these traditional held

words that now we have to make them

gender neutral or even gender specific

and say policewoman police man

fire woman fire man congresswoman

congress man

versus just using a blanket term to

encompass

everybody as far as mankind yeah i never

thought there would come a time

when i would actually have to try and

guess the gender of anybody

over the age of 18 months old um

right you know i mean that that does

make sense it makes total sense

yeah and you know looking further into

definitions

um i decided to look at masculinity

and again the oxford dictionary which is

very close to the merriam-webster

definition came up with qualities

or attributes as characteristics

of men which i thought was pretty fair i

mean masculinity this is what men do

this is how men

act i thought that one was actually fair

now in the definition of a man

that one got a little bit fluffy but

masculinity it kind of

i think it actually defined that one

pretty well

no i i think they did a good job there

and

even looking back at the way they define

man or or men or masculinity or whatever

we all have these upheld traditional

roles

as far as what a man is supposed to do

a and of course we're also kind of

talking about the american man right

yeah so there's these traditional roles

that a man is supposed to fulfill right

and so

if you look kind of back

this is kind of way back right you know

you you've got the hunter

you know he's he's going out he's

killing animals

to be able to feed his family you know

he's he's providing for the family

but once we got past the

necessity of being a hunter you know

when we had grocery stores

and butcher shops and all that good

stuff

as we progressed along uh with

technology and

all that good stuff right then it became

more of the provider

role so it was still you know the

the old saying of bringing home the

bacon

right you know whether it was actually

bringing home the bacon

or the bacon became a

uh what do you want to call it well it's

the euphemism

a euphemism there you go a euphemism for

money they're bringing home the bacon

they're they're putting the food

on the table yeah it's always been

they're putting the food on the table

they're keeping the roof over the head

and they're putting the food on the

table and they also made sure

that their family was protected right

they made sure that they were out of

harm's way

kind of that same roof over the head but

it was also

you know back in the old days to protect

from

animals that might come in so you're not

living in a tent

right you have protection from the

elements you have protection from nature

all that good stuff and because of all

this

they were the head of the household they

were the ones that set the rules

and they said here's the rules you

follow the rules and there's no

arguments here

on the rules there's no bending the

rules these are the rules

right but something happened

yeah i think you know going back to the

last point of the definition of

masculinity

what i missed when i first read through

that definition

was that that can be interpreted

so many ways depending on nowadays what

you think

the roles of a man are it's now become

very fluid

you know it it's like almost you know it

might be

considered you know equal on every part

for those last things you mentioned

in terms of the provider and protector

and the head of the household you know

now it's more about

joint decision making uh you know in

terms of protector i think

you know it doesn't matter how much

equality people

strive for the man's always going to be

the one going out there with the

baseball bat in the backyard when they

hear a noise at night

sure uh for the most part yeah let's be

honest for the most part and

and generally society again it doesn't

matter how much

you know feminism is out there you know

if you have a couple

whether it's just boyfriend girlfriend

or they're married that

you know the woman works and the man

doesn't that is generally frowned upon

whereas the other way around that's

quite a common occurrence in terms of

the women

you know the woman bringing up the

children or even if she doesn't have

children being

i guess what was traditionally called a

housewife but the other way around

it's very frowned upon if a man doesn't

have a job but just as stuff around the

house and the woman is the person who is

the main wage owner

so although you know this push towards

equality

you know has been going on i can't

remember when the women's liberation and

feminism movement started and when they

started burning the bras and all that

stuff um some of them shouldn't some of

them

should have kept them on um i think

you know there are still roles that

women regardless of how much of a

feminist they call themselves

they have certain roles they expect men

to play when it comes down to it

yes absolutely and you can take away

all of the more if you want to call it

forward thinking right it there's

always going to be that opportunity

where

if you have the we'll use the term

traditional household right and

and you got a man and a woman in there

male and female

no matter what relationship they're in

if if there's a noise outside

yeah it's typically the woman

telling the man like you said go outside

with the baseball bat and see

what's going on uh you're always gonna

have that

but now we've approached this point

to where that defender that

uh strong individual

that is protecting everybody that's

defending everybody

is now being frowned on it's now looked

at

as if if you are this strong

alpha male uh you grunt you like to play

football you you got hair on your chest

and everything

something's wrong with you you're not

you're

not the definition of what the modern

man should be and i think

media has a little bit to to do with

that

uh society culture it it all has to do

with that

and now it's more acceptable to kind of

be

that kind compassionate

uh sensitive is is a big word

uh things like that that we

somehow got away from and now

if you have a guy like that they're

looked down on

that they're they're they're

literally just looked down on their

neanderthals

yeah would be a good way to put it they

are true neanderthals with that

yeah and i don't disagree with that you

know men

should be possibly more you know

sensitive accept in and

you know probably bend a little away

from some of the traditional roles

coming from the 50s and the 60s of their

expectations on women

that you know men should be more

sensitive to the aspirations of women

and accept them more in society that

when

sure you know because there are a lot of

driven successful women out there who

are kick-ass you know they

absolutely do great stuff i mean look at

you know some of the people we have in

politics

you know the press secretary i mean that

woman i would hate to get in a

two-second argument with her because she

would kick my butt

yeah absolutely and and it's not

an attack on women and i think that

whole toxic

masculinity argument tends to go

to the point that you know the

mansplaining

or things like that

no one no man wants to

turn around and try to attack a strong

woman a woman that's out there

and doing what she can do to support

herself

her family you know maybe maybe she was

married and lost her husband and she's

raising kids and she's

providing for her family it's not really

about that

it's about that attack on the man

that actually is going out there and

trying to take care of his family

and trying to be the provider and trying

to be the strong

person and then because of the

the attitude i guess would be the word

to use

he gets attacked and i hate to say it's

not fair because that just sounds like a

weak argument

you know oh this isn't fair i'm being

treated unfairly because

honestly that's a product of

the toxic masculinity if

you look at it that way people would be

able to say well now you're kind of

going

more to the point of of shrinking

that uh spectrum from the

masculine to the feminine side you're

moving more towards the middle if that

spectrum

does exist it's all about fairness it's

all about feelings or whatever

so you end up in that point to where

you're fighting a losing battle yeah

you're fighting a losing battle

and i think one of the common

misconceptions that comes up

when you start talking about this topic

is that

you're trying to put women back in their

place but this is absolutely the

opposite i absolutely applaud strong

women

you know i agree with women's rights i

want women to achieve as much as they

can achieve without barriers

my point on this topic is

with the men who have been bullied into

being

less than men sure who have take who

have taken a step back

because they're now scared to be men and

you mentioned toxic masculinity which

passed a few years ago obviously none of

us had heard that term

right and it really there's not much

synergy in those words because

masculinity in itself is not

you wouldn't think would be a bad thing

you know

sure but you know you put the word toxic

in front of it

and it's a weird thing it's like putting

the word toxic in front of the word

dog toxic dog it doesn't really make

much sense

because it starts accusing masculinity

as a whole

as being a bad thing but then it starts

dividing up

certain traits of masculinity and like

you mentioned again the word

mansplaining which again a few years ago

i'd never heard of

but you know i think um

well i mean i'll go with the definition

i've found online i think this is the

best way to explain

toxic masculinity sure it says that the

concept of toxic masculinity

is used in academic and media which is

where you'd expect it

right discussions of masculinity to

refer to certain cultural

norms however you decide to describe

those

that are associated with harm to society

and to mend themselves now that's a very

kind of

subjective type of viewpoint as in what

somebody might consider toxic

other people is that well that's that

you know i mean

it's not something which most people

would get offended by

you know it's like opening a door for

you know for a

female you know in the south here we do

it without thought on the vast majority

of women

they're very grateful for it but i've

done that up in the northeast

and i've had funny looks i've had women

tell me i can open the door myself

and it's like you know and i mean it's

ridiculous but down here in the south

that's just common courtesy but

you know i open the door for men as much

as i do for women

well in in that's one thing in the south

that that we do

and and you can call it common courtesy

you can call it chivalry

whatever you want to call it uh it's a

difference

even in the american culture depending

on where you're at and

like you say in the north uh very good

friend of mine

a woman who is a branch manager

of a company that is

tending more towards kind of a a male

dominated yeah company but i always

joke with her that she's kind of more of

a man

than most of them right she's you know a

hardcore

she does her job well but when i go up

there

and i open the door for her it

almost drives her nuts sure she's not

used to it

she's used to like you say grabbing the

door handle herself

you know and going back to the whole

south thing

you know if we open a door and we kind

of

look back behind us and we see somebody

coming what do we do

we hold the door for them right and and

we've always done that and it doesn't

matter if it's male or female i mean

nine times out of ten it's a male who

opens the door and leaves it open for me

and i always say thanks man

yeah and you led that in perfectly so

so we hold the door for somebody and

then we always say thank you yeah

it's like oh thanks yeah or thank you or

whatever appreciate it yeah whatever and

that has faded away in so many aspects

of the american culture

yeah and i guess you call it common

courtesy

it it's that maybe southern hospitality

but would be another way to look at it

right that we just

that's how we were raised yeah

especially in texas i mean

it it's kind of the same with taking a

hat off

yeah in a restaurant my wife

knows that if i see somebody wearing a

hat

in a restaurant it drives me insane

to see somebody sitting at a table

eating dinner

with a hat on you see i have to keep

mine on because i shave my head and my

hair gets so shiny

but i'm afraid i'm well i'm afraid the

lights are going to shine on my head and

blind people from eating the meal

well yeah you're doing all of us a favor

yeah with that

but i i got into an argument up in uh

the north because there was somebody

sitting at a table with a hat

on and i almost refused to eat

because he had a hat on and we were in a

nice restaurant yeah

and they finally had to explain to him

look max is from the south this is what

they do in the south they

they do not wear a hat at the table

you just don't do it and that's why he's

mad that's why he's looking at you

like he wants to come over and punch you

in the face

and maybe that's a little bit of toxic

masculinity i

i don't know but you know that's where

that's how i was raised you walk in

you walk into a building you take your

hat off

yeah that's what you do yeah i mean

that's similar to

you know it's not like a science it's

you know if you're in church you know

for the majority well i mean now it's a

little bit different you'll find kids

who will wear

you know baseball cap in church or

whatever for the most part

they don't but i mean it's like you know

you take your hat off you cap off

when the national anthem comes on right

it's not a hard and fast rule you know

but it's just

it's just a point of respect that you

follow now in a restaurant

i'll be honest with you that i i can't

say that ever bothers me you know i keep

my hat on anyway i don't think for

you know one reason or the other but we

have certain quirks

you know i had growing up in england

where you know the whole concept of the

english gentleman

you know in terms of opening a door and

all these other things which again are

very common in the south but not so much

a game when you go

you know to the coasts here or you go up

in the northeast

and i actually had a friend because i

used to live in the northeast for a

while before i moved down to texas

and you know i had a friend who

eventually

he refused to open the door

for women just because 50 of the time

also

he just got such disparaging remark

remarks aimed at him

that you know it opened the door for

guys you know leave the door open behind

him for guys but he just got tired of

you know remarks from women you know

just being negative towards them just

for trying to be polite

which should do for guys it's not a case

of saying hey you're a weak female you

can't open the door

it's polite yeah you know i'd do it for

a dog

yeah it doesn't matter well depends on

the dog well i wouldn't do it for

another

i wouldn't do it for chihuahua no those

small dogs can stay outside and yeah

yeah absolutely that that that's all

they're good for

so uh going back to that

so one thing in and we're gonna get a

little bit controversial here

uh we're not gonna try to be

controversial

but on top of all the toxic masculinity

talk and and everything is

it seems now that being

a straight white male

is the worst thing you can be now right

there is no winning

anything if if you were

white and straight and

male you're the bottom of the totem pole

yeah and there's probably some implied

uh controversy even saying near the

bottom of the totem pole there right

it's it's extremely difficult and

we're not trying to discountenance any

kind of struggles that any kind of

ethnicities have had or any kind of

women have had over the years but

you know now we can't even open our

mouths

voice our opinions everything we

can't say you know here's what we're

thinking

because you just get attacked you say

well

you don't know you you've got male

privilege

you've got white privilege you've got

all this you don't

understand any of this uh

any of these struggles that we've had

and so we just sit back and we say oh

okay uh

we'll just keep our mouth shut and you

know as my dad would say keep

keep our nose to the grindstone and keep

working and not worry about it

uh quite frankly it sucks

yeah i mean i was introduced to

white male privilege at a very young age

because you know i grew up

living in a trailer until i was about 10

or 11. my dad had to work about 16 hours

a day

and you know had to drop out of school

when he was about 13

14 had very actually had very little

school and he had to work on a farm with

his father

and couldn't actually read so yeah i had

i had

a ton of white privilege when i was a

kid in that scenario but i think

you know the big problem is like when we

read the definition of toxic masculinity

as defined by

you know academia and the media

is that it's such a small percentage of

people

who are making these rules and getting

offended and then they broadcast to

everybody else

you need to be offended by this because

you know i've got i've got a lot of

friends you know various religions

nationalities races and stuff and they

don't have a problem

with me being white they don't have a

problem with white people you know it's

the

it's the media and academia who is

telling us we need to have this white

guilt we need to have this male

guilt and it's such a small percentage

probably less than one percent

probably far less than one percent of

people telling everybody house

what they need to be offended by whereas

the majority of people

it doesn't matter which side of the

political aisle you're on just

genuinely want to get along but there

are people

stoking the fires to try and make being

a white male

bad when in reality the vast majority of

females

vast majority of other races have no

problems with white males

it's just the people who have the money

whether it be in hollywood

the people who buy the advertising space

try to preach

that you know white males are bad yet

guaranteed

every single one of these companies down

to the last one a run

by old white males yeah it

that's totally true and and like you

telling the story of your father over in

england

i remember my father telling me the

story of

his father whom i'm named after

and so my grandfather who died before i

was born i know he was called shepherd

he would hit that was his name shepard

he couldn't read or write right

couldn't read or write he was a

wallpaper hanger

and worked tirelessly

to provide for his family

there was very little money for the

family they

the story that i heard and i believe it

because i've actually

seen the house my grandfather

built the house my father grew up in

with his own two hands and it wasn't a

great looking house i mean you're

talking about a

two three room house no indoor plumbing

things like that so i i didn't come

from white privilege and there was no

you know handed down wealth or anything

my father a very intelligent man very

wise man

didn't go to college didn't have a

college degree

worked his whole life and even to this

day

still works he's 82 years old and

is still working and you know that

there was no privilege there but i do

remember in

in not trying to dig too much into the

race thing

but i got to share this story i remember

being a young kid i don't know i was

probably

eight or nine when my dad told me this

story but

my dad was on the basketball team in his

junior high school

and they rode the bus to

you know some basketball game and

on the way back the coach of the team

said well we're gonna stop off at a

diner

and we're gonna eat and my dad didn't

have any money

to be able to eat at the diner and so he

told the coach

you know i i don't have any money to to

be able to eat

he said no the school's gonna pay for

your food and my dad said

okay and i mean today we think about

going out to eat driving through a

drive-through that's just commonplace

but

back in those days going out to eat that

that was an event

right so my dad goes in and

get the food and there was a black kid

on the basketball team and they told the

black kid that he had to sit on the bus

and eat his dinner well and my dad

didn't like that

and so when my dad got his food he went

and sat with that kid on the bus and

ate dinner with him and everybody on the

team

ostracized my dad because he went and

sat on the bus with them so when i hear

this

you know toxic masculinity this white

privilege thing i

i think back to that story because

that's the way i was raised right

and i think most people were actually

raised that way they

they know that you know yes you've got

people out there that have crazy beliefs

and all that

and it's that bad apple argument you

know there's always two or three

bad apples right but that's that's not

the majority

that's the minority yeah now quick

question um

was this a 1a school because your dad's

about 5'7 how did he make the basketball

team

well you know or did he shrink well

well you got to remember this was junior

high right this was

junior high so i don't know

how tall he was all right and yeah i i

guarantee

but you know what i have seen my dad

throw a basketball

and he could make shots but yeah he he

wasn't going to go nba or

anything like that definitely not

genetic because i've seen you trying to

throw attractions

absolutely no i'm like one yard away and

yeah it it doesn't happen yourself in

the face but you also got to remember

this is in

the middle of kansas too right so it's

not like

yeah that's where all the nba we had we

had like a goat playing point guard

yeah exactly well exactly i think

exactly what you're saying about toxic

masculinity there are always in every

segment of society a few people

who do bad things say bad things

that get the most attention and people

attribute

their attributes to the whole of that

specific um part of society and so you

know you get a few bad white men a few

bad black men a few bad asians

a few bad women you know it starts

you know the more that spreads around it

starts becoming a stereotype and the

more the media

and ads push that it becomes a

stereotype

going back a couple of years and i can't

remember whether this was a

super bowl ad i think the first time it

was shown

it was actually during a football game

it might have been a playoff game but um

gillette came up with this the best the

razer company yeah yeah the best

men can be and um gillette is owned by

procter and gamble

and um there before this ad came out

there had been commentary about you know

a lot of uh png ads

it started kind of turning this corner

kind of changing the views of

men the roles of men but you know

kind of almost put in this affirmative

action

type role in these adverts of stuff that

things men wouldn't normally do and

stuff that women wouldn't normally do

and the gillette ad which caused a lot

of controversy and a lot of um

people would actually drop the product

and i actually dropped the product for

this reason as well

was because they ran a two-minute

commercial and it was basically like

five or six different segments

of about 20-25 seconds each of

just purely white men doing bad horrible

things being racist

being sexist and then the people who

were correcting them in the commercial

it was women

it was minorities and it's like only

white men are bad that was the message

to the commercial but then they tried to

play it off and just be

oh just be the best you can be but then

why not mix it up i mean there are

plenty of

you know you you go through the news

there are plenty of women who

you know abuse their kids there's plenty

of minorities who commit crime and yes

there's plenty of white men who are

sexist

racist and everything else but if you

really want to truly send the message be

the best you can be

then send it out to everybody then

nobody gets offended

everybody gets the message and it

doesn't look like you're targeting

um one group and sure you know

it's totally makes sense because

it's very easy and i i guess in

the realm that we're in now

that that you know when i'm using air

quotes now that poor white guy

right and most people are gonna say oh

yeah

let's really feel bad for the white guy

and we're not sitting here trying to

feel bad

for the white guys but

we're so i guess

i hate to use the word afraid

but we're so afraid of saying anything

that is going to offend

somebody else that we just you know we

sit back

we remain silent we say okay well

we're just gonna go through our

normal day-to-day stuff we don't

really wanna hurt anybody we don't want

to offend anybody

but we also don't have a channel to

complain

we don't have a voice to get out there

and say

you know hey we're not all bad you know

we

we understand when people go through

hardships and heartaches and

things like that but

you know just let us do what we want to

do

and and don't take something like

a razor company that obviously

i'm guessing gillette by the way and we

didn't research this but i'm guessing

gillette

probably sells razors to women too

but that they didn't target women in

that ad but on that point

can i interject then sure um for pretty

much the same product

but with a pink handle they actually

charge

two dollars more on average for the

women's product and so they're talking

about equality but they charge

more for women's races the exact same

product than men's raises yeah

see that's ridiculous you know in

i don't know anything about you know a

men's razor versus a women's razor but

if it's the same

razor blade i mean yep it's razor blades

why

they change the color of the handle yeah

why are they charging more

right i mean that's well i mean well i

mean well i mean i i can tell you why

it's because you know the majority of

men

um you know shave at some point

but they use trimmers they use razors

but women

for their legs their under their arms

have to really use kind of blaze with

razors so women are almost kind of

forced in a way to having to use you

know

razors you know razor blades you know

whereas men

aren't and so because they know that

this is a necessity for women

and women have to buy them they put them

a higher price whereas for men if it got

too expensive

we'd be like dang it i'm just going to

buy a trimmer i'm just going to buy a

you know battery or electric

shaver and just go with that i'm not

going to pay like you know this much

money for this but

women they know they can get away with

it because women don't really have the

alternative outside of you know

expensive waxing and

depolation creams and all those other

stuff to get rid of the hair

and and you could almost go in in this

coved season that we're in now

i i saw an article about uh you probably

should not have a beard to be able to

wear your mask safely

because uh the beard is gonna push the

mask out a little bit

so you need to start shaving almost

makes me wonder

you know are companies like gillette

trying to

go to right the cdc and pony up some

money and say hey

we we got to go back because you know

beards are popular now right

if you look back in history

presidents and and men they all had

beards until

you got to the point to where you had

the disposable razor

and then all of a sudden men started

shaving more and now

it's popular to have a beard and now

companies like gillette might be saying

well hey

you know we need to sell more razors so

this is a fine opportunity for us to say

hey

you know hey guys all you guys that have

these beards

you need to start shaving them off right

and so you need to go

out and buy our razors to keep these

beards clean because you've got to wear

your mask and that mask

has got to fit a certain way yeah i

don't know i mean that sounds

a little bit conspiracy that's exactly

what that's exactly what i was going to

say but you have to remember back at

that period when men pretty much all had

beards and mustaches they also

mostly wore hats as well so it's like

this conspiracy that like

you know the razor companies and the

hairdressers got together

and said we need to change things here

because we're not making any money yeah

i made four dollars last week we need to

change right yeah

we gotta do some uh some lobbying right

with congress

and get that squared away so

if we look towards like and we talked

about

gillette in in their advertising right

but if

if we also look towards movies right

in and trying to promote that healthy

masculinity

you know stepping back and and letting

women take the lead

which we've said you know what it

strong women we're all for you y'all are

doing great out there

uh no problem there but you also

just can't continuously step on men

uh the same way we're stepping aside and

saying hey

you know lady you want to take the lead

here

we're good with that but you can't push

men out of the way right just to

attain that yeah and i mean you know i

have no problem like i'm pretty sure

you know most men wouldn't i have no

problem with being a kept man

i mean you know my good friend martha

stewart i mean she's

old but she can cook and she has lots of

money if she wants me to be here

i wouldn't mind having her as a sugar

mama i'd gladly live there and

you could be the yeah yeah i don't care

yeah i don't care but

you know i think you know in anderson

movies now they're trying to change

the perception of what masculinity is

and

you know normally when you try and

change your society's way of thinking it

takes places

sorry it takes place over decades sure

but i feel that

this has taken a very sharp turn you

know this has been a very steep curve in

trying to persuade

uh basically the general public

what a man's roles are and what is

offensive about being male because it's

like when we started off we said that

you know we hadn't heard of the terms

mansplaining or toxic masculinity before

like

you know the past few years but i think

within that same time

frame advertisements and movies have

you know gone very heavily and very

quickly to change the role

of males i mean you watch a commercial

now when i actually started

making a note of it after i read an

article online

about how many white males now are in

commercials

where they actually are the lead role

where they're not

demasculated you know they don't take

away the masculinity

you know you've got men in sweater vests

you know kind of skinny in sweater vests

you know looking like um i guess

traditionally what would um call the

people who used to hang out in starbucks

yeah those type of people and nothing

against the people who hang out and

starbucks

but it's one of those things where now

it's like a woman

has to take the lead role or it has to

be a minority in the lead

role and there are very few commercials

i would say

less than probably one in five where a

white male

that would have been used maybe 10 years

ago

is actually the lead role in these

commercials any lead role of a male now

he has to be slightly feminized

non-threatening

and really kind of toe the line and if

there's a woman in the commercial he

instantly becomes the idiot

and one thing i noticed it almost

doesn't matter what color the male is

because

if you have a black and a white male in

the commercial if a woman appears

both of those men are idiots yeah they

they become the buffoons

yeah and that is so

easy to do now it it's with

all of the advertisements all of the

hollywood

that the man becomes the buffoon

and this is

this one's gonna hurt a little bit but

our beloved

movie franchise star wars well before we

go there oh oh we're gonna go

in there before you go there think about

how in the last

two three years uh horror movies have

changed now i know you're not a big

horror movie fan i

really am i i watched so i gotta defer

to you on the horror now now i watched

i don't like them now i watched like i

don't know maybe two or three horror

movies a week

you know it's always been my thing um

watching horror movies it's my favorite

genre i think overall

and you know i've noticed that

you know more and more that women have

become

you know the main antagonist against you

know evil entities and everything else

and the men

have become all the screaming not

level-headed you know characters and you

know it used to be a point if you go

back to the movies the 70s the 80s or

the 90s the horror movie as you remember

it would be like the girl like hears the

noise outside and she'd open the window

stick her head out and look slowly to

one side

look the other side and then you know

maybe get head chopped off or something

or she'd hear a noise

and just go outside you know in a night

gown you know to find out what the noise

was

but now that's changed i mean now the

horror movies

you know i've seen in the last two three

years that doesn't happen anymore it's

the men who make the stupid mistakes

and again it doesn't matter what color

the male is um

you know that they're just buffoons you

know that they're devoid of logic

it's like they hear a noise outside but

let's go outside in our underwear and

not take a weapon or any of this kind of

stuff

and it's the women who always making the

decisions and leading them out of

trouble

and it's you know it it's not realistic

i mean

at home if you heard a noise outside and

voices

you know it's not going to be the first

one off the couch gets to go and see

what's going on

right you're not going to go send your

daughter or your wife out there

absolutely no i'm going to grab the gun

or i'm going to grab a knife and i'm

going to go out there i'm not going to

expect

somebody else to go out there for me you

know because at the end of the day if it

comes down to anything involving

conflict

you want the person who is most likely

to survive the conflict

going out there to confront the danger

and that's something which has become

now

unrealistic in not just horror movies

but

now we can switch back to our favorite

franchise and address that issue here

yeah

and this one's gonna hurt

a little bit because you and i both grew

up

loving star wars we've talked about it a

little bit on the podcast before

you know we we are big star wars fans

and the first three movies

great movies then we had the prequels

and we'll leave it at that

and then we had the release of

the sequels right and we were

extremely excited about this you know we

we looked at it that okay well we got

the disney machine behind this

uh they're gonna pump all kinds of money

in it uh

george lucas isn't gonna let us down

and then we go

see the first movie and we say okay

if you look back at the first movies and

you got luke skywalker and all of a

sudden

you know yeah he he has the

you know the the family uh

ability with the force and so you kind

of get that but obi-wan is kind of

training him

send him off to dagobah he's you know

hanging out with yoda

and he's figuring all this stuff out

you're not quite sure

what the time frame is when he's

actually

doing his training but then you get into

i think it's 1979

1980 well

yeah well we don't we don't know exactly

how long he spent how long ago in a

galaxy far far away

something like that something like that

right but but then

all of a sudden we're

presented with rey who

magically and i use that term

heavily magically just can

wield a lightsaber and has these

force powers and

everyone around other than rey

is just worthless yeah and i think

absolutely

i think the one thing which maybe saved

that

in episode nine was finding out who her

grandfather was

because he was obviously you know one of

the strongest sith

of all time so she had a great pull to

inherit just like luke skywalker

inherited his stuff from his father you

know darth vader anakin

you know that you know you understand

why he had such strong

force powers and in some ways you can

kind of understand why ray got a pretty

heavy thing because again you look at

episode nine when

um you know he lifts all these you know

imperial starships out of the water and

stuff it's like

we'd never seen any of that type of use

of power because let's be honest i mean

it would have ruined the original movies

i think in the last trilogy they went

too far you know in the demonstration of

the powers of the force

i think it kind of ruined it to me it's

like a kind of semi superpower which you

know you can use to give you an

advantage

but they made it like a super power to

the point where

if you really had those powers you'd be

at a hundred percent

indestructible and undefeatable yeah if

you could do that but

then the dumpster fire that episode 8

was

if you look at that it was all about how

the men in that movie were idiots and

the women were in control of everything

i remember going to see episode 8

and i was sitting next to my wife

and when the movie ended she looked over

at me

and she said what did you think

and i looked at her i looked her square

in the eyes and i said

that sucked that was the worst star wars

movie

and that's a bold statement now didn't

she didn't she also think that you look

like you've been crying as well

i probably was i probably was crying i

i was so disappointed because look

episode seven

not great but not bad you know lots of

fan

service you know the the falcons back

you see han and chewie

han dies whatever but

you know in and then you get to the end

and it's like luke's sitting there like

i'm sitting here on an island and i

haven't done anything

but you got leia yeah you got all that

so yes lots of

milk in the tit of some alien seal well

no no that's eight

not seven well no no i was talking about

seven yeah that's when you first see him

and so so when i watched eight i i

was so disappointed because i

i remember even seeing the prequels

and even episode one as

as looking back as as bad as that was i

still saw it probably four or five times

in the theater

i mean it was a star wars movie

two and three same thing i mean

but eight yeah i've seen twice uh

in with the second time with me and our

friend eric right

it's only by the way it's only the fact

that eric drove

was that was the only reason i didn't

walk out of that movie i hated it so

much yeah

yeah just to clarify

when the new movies have came out i've

always taken my family

and we go see the movie and then you and

i

and eric we would always go see the

movies

either the the next day or the day

before whatever and yes a lot of times

i'd fall asleep yeah

but i i totally agree with you

that when eight came out

and i saw it with my family and and that

was one of those where i saw it with my

family before i saw with you guys

i thought okay well let me just go

see it again with with you guys maybe i

missed something

and i watched it again and i was just so

disappointed like you say

it if it wasn't for eric driving

yeah we would have walked out of it i'd

have gone next door and watched the new

miley cyrus

movie oh to be honest but but the thing

is i don't understand because

it doesn't have to be this way because

you look at rogue one

all right it's got a lead female

character yeah that movie was perfectly

balanced it had minorities

all the way through it you had a female

character but they balanced it perfectly

there was no pc stuff in there

and it was a fantastic movie i mean and

not only that

it it it wasn't some kind of pandering

towards her as a female character right

it you attached to her you said you know

jen erso that is a great character you

you were hoping that she ended up better

after the movie of course

you know spoiler alert if you haven't

seen rogue one which

i can't imagine anybody listening to

this right now hadn't seen it but

you know they all die in the end and you

actually feel like

you know here's a character that i can

actually attach to

and i wouldn't care if she's male female

black white

it doesn't matter yeah it was the

character now you do

find though that you know in those star

wars movies like all the way through

all three trilogies of it that

if you notice the clothing between the

men and the women

they pretty much wore the same stuff i

mean ray

pretty much wore the same stuff as luke

skywalker right

press war something that it's like a

unisex

kind of clothing line and

it's funny because well except for

return of the jedi

right with princess leia right yeah

that's still my

favorite star wars outfit yeah let's be

honest yeah

let's be honest that's a little bit

different that's fantastic

rest in peace carrie fisher yeah wow

yeah yeah

but um you know i do think there is a

deliberate attempt

you know to masculine a lot of women's

clothing and effeminate a lot of men's

clothing now

you know i think it started back when

the man purse came out

and you know tight skinny jeans and yeah

all

this stuff now tight skinny jeans wasn't

a new thing because you go back to kind

of glam rock in the 70s and the hair

bands of the 80s

you know those bands wore you know tight

pants and all this stuff yeah the

leather

pants and all that guy that wasn't for

general consumption you know he didn't

tend to have too many people walking

around in the streets past a certain age

wearing clothes like that but now

you know it's hard sometimes looking at

you know how some women dress

and you know wondering why

they want to kind of defer or get rid of

the femininity that they see femininity

is a weakness

and yet they're pushing towards equality

but

don't try and become equal by trying to

become more masculine

as we said to begin with you can be a

strong female and we will celebrate and

applaud you all day long

but don't try and be equal by trying to

be more manish and the same thing if

you're a man

you can change and be more sensitive not

be sexist

not be racist but you don't have to

become feminine

you know to kind of balance out those

things and get rid of those things which

i guess were truly toxic before being a

man is not being toxic

you know there are toxic parts of

femininity and masculinity but you can

get rid of those without

losing the identity of being a man and a

woman sure it

and you have to go back to that spectrum

idea that that's what i look at with so

many of these

problems that we have because we get so

far

on one side or the other of the spectrum

and

i would like to think that most people

actually think about the fact that

they're somewhere in the middle

they're reasonable enough to realize

that there's certain things on one side

certain things on the other side

let's be reasonable let's be logical

let's think about this

and meet somewhere in the middle

just kind of like the

the the feminazis

uh you know feminism

look i i get the fact that women

want to be proud of being a woman and

they should be proud to be a woman

and most men are going to support women

like we've talked about strong women and

everything but

just being a feminine nazi

and telling men that they're terrible

because they're

not a woman is the wrong way to go right

it's the

absolute wrong way to go i think you

know

people criticize

you know the beauty industry because

it's

at least traditionally mostly filled

with very skinned

skinny tall white women

they miss out on the fact that the

majority of the fashion industry

uh whether it be magazines or clothes

clothing designers

right and have been females um you know

you have

you have a few exceptions but for the

most point especially nowadays

you know these are females driving this

market and this fashion industry and yet

for whatever reason it's men who get the

criticism

for women you know having this

image put upon them that you have to

live up to this unrealistic image but

you and i i mean you know we don't like

60-pound women you know who with no with

no curves and all this it's not

it's not men who are driving this

unrealistic image

you know for women yeah we don't want

you to be 400 pounds but we don't want

you to be 40 pounds either

you know somewhere kind of in the middle

and men have a you know sliding scale of

what they prefer

but you know it wasn't men for the most

part who put this unrealistic perception

you know femininity or what it means to

be a woman or you're only attractive you

look this whatever you look this way

because we didn't pay any interest to it

we don't care

not only that but last time i checked i

don't think there's too many men that

write articles for

cosmopolitan magazine right it

these are are magazines written by women

for

women and so they're having the

the models on the cover whatever

they're writing these articles about you

know here's this diet here's these

clothes you should wear

all that we didn't do anything right but

they would attack somebody like

hugh hefner who brings out playboy and

then

say well that this is what you're trying

to project to men is

what a perfect woman is like well no

these women are having pictures taken of

themselves they want to be models and

nude not nude doesn't actually matter

it's just a magazine but you're putting

out

it cosmopolitan that's the only one i

can think of

i i know there's several other vogue

magazines

vogue yeah there you go but but then all

of a sudden

we got to that well don't body shame me

right

you know i i can be big and and i can

still be beautiful i think

dove did a little deal about that it's

like

okay well nobody no man

said anything about this right uh that

this is all on y'all yeah so

why are you attacking us you're you're

the ones that put

all these like you say these

and god i hate to use this term but

anorexic

yeah kind of women on this you're the

ones that pick

these these women to take these pictures

of and say this is what's beautiful that

these are the clothes these are the

runway shows that you're putting on and

you have these women that are

just ridiculously thin and you then turn

around and you have

all these other women looking to them

saying well this is what

men think is beautiful

no men were sitting around that table

saying yeah

well hang on a second if we didn't say

this right

this is all on you guys but if you look

back at i don't know

maybe swimsuit models and

playboy the women in those magazines

look nothing like the women in vogue and

cosmopolitan sure

and you know i can't remember which

actress said it but there was a quote

and this was like over 20 years ago i

think i was still living in england

and she said whenever i uh skip through

you know the pages of vogue i feel like

the message is

if you can't fit yourself in between the

gap between the sofa and the wall you're

a fat [ __ ]

oh wow i totally do not doubt that yeah

don't doubt that at all yeah so you know

i mean at the end of the day

we're not going to be pressured

by this new change because we're of a

certain age but i kind of fear for

kids who are getting injured

indoctrinated going through the

you know the educational system because

it is academia

and movies and ads which you know kids

through phones and everything else are

very addicted to and that's where they

get most of their learning from well

don't

don't forget about the fact that they

they go through that in high school and

when they go to higher education they

get away from their parents

so their parents can't tell them this is

crazy

you don't believe this they get away

from their parents they go to college

and then they're hit with the social

media and they don't have their parents

there to explain to them

this is bs and this is not bs yeah and

then they

walk right out of college with this

crazy

thought of the way the world really is

yeah i mean i'm not ashamed of being

male 1 i mean i don't

obviously you're not and you know most

of them

i don't know maybe you're trying to talk

me into being ashamed of being a male

i'm i'm having second thoughts well i

was actually again i read a bit of an

article the other day about

not just misgendering that

people are offended if you declare

yourself as male or female

and there was an article which i think

was kind of part

joking part not and it was to

stop saying good boy or good girl to

your dog

and you know because you know you're

you're

designating a gender to your pet and

your pet

may be confused and might not identify

with that gender now i think that was

kind of it

it wasn't on babylon b but it was kind

of like part serious

part not but then i did read a while

later a serious article

saying that you know declaring your male

or female

at some point may be considered as

offensive

as trying to uh assume somebody's gender

that you can't say

i am a man you can't say i'm a woman

because it's gonna offend those people

who are

maybe confused about what their gender

is

and make them feel isolated so i mean i

truly hope it doesn't go that way

but given the way things have gone the

last two three years

i i mean i i wouldn't put it past

right it you know

ironically in this country

we've always had the freedom of speech

and of course you know

freedom of speech is one of those things

that you got to be careful with

just because you say something and you

have that so-called freedom doesn't mean

that there's

not consequences behind what you say

so if we continue down that path and and

just realize that we can have dialogues

about things we can actually

talk about things i think we'll be okay

yeah but if you start silencing

the freedom of speech then we're

going back to what we fought for

in this country 200 and some odd years

ago

of not being able to say what we want to

say

right and there were you know the whole

thing about free speech

the common example i think which was

used for about 50 years was

you can have freedom of speech but

something like you can't shout

fire in a crowded movie theater right

now when the movie backdraft came out

it's a very popular movie yep uh love

that people put this to the test and

every time something happened

people in the audience said shout out

fire fire kind of thing and it was to

prove the point

that everything is circumstantial

there's always going to be

a loophole where you can say something

there's going to be times you can't say

something but again i think it comes

down to this fact

that probably less than one percent of

the population

are really that offended by stuff

we find ridiculous now there is a

growing segment

of society who are kind of pushing

you know this agenda where we have to

kind of keep in line with this

non misgendering and all this other

stuff but again it's such a small part

that you know really if we ignored it it

would almost kind of go away or they'd

just be

you know making noises by themselves in

the corner but

it has such a wide audience because of

the media

and through hollywood that it's thrown

in everybody's faces and they're trying

to convince us that this has to be the

new normal

yep exactly and with that

thank you for tuning in to this episode

of the wolf and the shepherd

we certainly appreciate all of you

listeners

uh supporting us through all this and

we'll catch you on the next one