In this episode, Dara is all stirred up as a result of the theatre production he is currently working on. The subject of the work is masculinity and the nurturing and shaping of boys into men. Dara admits that the process of examining this subject closely is leaving him exhausted but also inspired and full of almost uncontrollable thought processes and emotional impulses around what masculinity means to him.
He slows things down to calm himself and revisits his adolescence and the attitudes towards women he and his male friends shared. Coming back to more recent times, he talks about some young boys he cautioned to think more about caring for and supporting each other rather than taking each other down. He’s not sure he reached them.
He wonders about the popularity of certain male speakers with huge followings of boys and men, specifically Andrew Tate, Jordan Petersen, and Joe Rogan. Has their success and extraordinary traction got anything to do with the influence of the internet and social media? Dara asks where the other voices are that might challenge some of the less palatable rhetoric from these figures.
Finally, there is time to briefly talk about the child within and whether it is forgotten, neglected or honoured.
My episode last year on the crisis of broken masculinity: https://shows.acast.com/theclearout/episodes/scared-women-damaged-men-and-the-crisis-of-broken-masculinit