MIA: Masculinity in America | Full Documentary

My name is Aldo Bertazzoni. As a young man in America, I often think about what my role in society is supposed to be. Men are trash everywhere in this country. Men are portrayed in the media as perverts. Perverts are everywhere. The fools. All these commercials are out there where the man's like the lazy guy on the couch. He's a tool. The concept of masculinity and the perception of man's role in society is rapidly changing. I don't need a man. Girl, you don't need no f***ing man. I can finance myself, I can f*** myself, and I can feed myself. There's so many trash men out there. Yes, they're all trash. This shift is leaving young men like myself grappling with questions about their identity and sense of purpose. We spent half a century telling men that the future was female and that women allegedly didn't need to rely on men for anything. Do you think men are important? Like for what? On a quest to find answers to these riddles and more, I spoke to everyday people on the street and invited a few respected experts to sit down and dig deep into this controversial subject. Imagine thinking that a man is going to make you happy. May the Lord make his face to shine upon us, a man and a woman. What are some of the stereotypes that you think of when you hear the word masculinity? Domineering male figure, I suppose. Unnecessarily protective. Everybody trying to put men up higher. I think toxic is probably the first thing that comes to mind. When you hear the word toxic masculinity, what do you think of? Disguises itself behind chivalry. Mansplaining. Controlling and unemotional. And women should glide through the world that I create instead of creating her own world. Feeling like you have to be a big tough guy to be a man. Conquer and destroy kind of mentality. Well when you were in your 20s, you were all in on the idea that masculinity is toxic. So much so that you set out to make the documentary, The Red Pill. Can you talk to me about how you changed in your beliefs as you were making this documentary? That was in my 20s and I made quite a few films with that mindset. I was really a feminist filmmaker. I was making films about women's rights and also LGBTQ issues. And I saw men as the oppressors of women throughout history. I believed that women made 77 cents on a man's dollar. And I believed in the patriarchy. So I set out to make a film exposing misogynists. Even while I was filming, I was still really resistant to what I was hearing. I was angry and was even getting hives just thinking about how much I disliked what they were saying. But then when I put the pen to paper, I think that's when I really started to question my beliefs. I couldn't argue with what they were saying. And when I did the fact checking with the statistics that they were putting out there about history and about gender roles, I realized that they were right. And then when I was transcribing the feminist interviews, I was realizing there were a lot of plot holes. The feminists really didn't understand the men's rights argument very well. And so because they didn't understand it very well, they couldn't debate it very well. Don't even start with that whole, oh, but you don't think about the men's issue. Well, then you know what? Start your own movement, which they have. But maybe make it a little more about legitimate issues. And I realized that they weren't really listening to the men's rights perspective. The more and more I've dug into men's issues and boys' issues, the more I realize how important a present father is in a child's life. And that never became more apparent to me than in the last three years of starting my own journey of having a son and now a second son. When you remove masculinity, you don't get docile, weak men. You get dangerous men that lash back out at society. There's a really great African proverb that says, a child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. Over time, it seems like toxic masculinity has become a catch-all term for any male behavior that someone finds offensive or unpleasant. This inconsistent, arbitrary criticism leads many men to fall into the trap of actual toxic behavior. As I think about becoming a father one day, I want to understand just how important a male figure is in a child's life. Manhood isn't something that just happens by accident. Tell me about your upbringing and the masculine role models that you had growing up. Well, for me, it was a little, it was a little bumpy. You know, so I was born to a teenage mom. So I was born to a fatherless household. I think I was in jeopardy before my stepfather came around. Statistically speaking, I definitely was in jeopardy. The guys go into jail, the mental illness, everything says that without a father or a man in the house, you're vulnerable. I don't want my family, my children to be vulnerable. My presence changes everything for them. They can sleep at night. They know if there's a threat, their father will deal with it. I have an eight-year-old daughter who is absolutely dynamic, who can do anything, athletically, intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. She is a dynamo. The fact is, I don't want her playing against boys in soccer. I don't even let my sons rough her up. Do you think I'm going to let your son rough her up? We have this idea right now that men and women are completely equal, that they're almost interchangeable. Is that correct? No, not even close. I mean, my wife was gone for the weekend. My children can see a big difference between mommy and daddy. She brings this softness, this nurturing. I bring this charge, this demand, this expectation. And it's not planned that way. It's just masculinity. Who am I naturally as a man? It's tough for boys today. And I feel for them because they're told that they're toxic if they hold the door open. All these things that were seen as chivalrous are now looked down upon. I teach my sons, they open the door for their mother. And get this, they open it for their sister. We put a premium on our role. You know, everything should be equal, not equal in responsibility. We're equal in value. And the fact that we're not the same is what allows us to shine. My wife's femininity is able to flourish because of me, but so is my masculinity. Who I am as a man and a father, very different. Without her contrast there, my sons wouldn't get the same lesson. My daughter wouldn't get the same lesson. We have seen the damaging impact of society, public figures, and the media vilifying masculinity and disregarding the role of fathers at home. But what do our psychological establishments say about men's roles in relationships and society at large? Dr. Chloe Carmichael, New York clinical psychologist and relationship expert. Good to have you here. Thanks for having me. It's a great subject. A lot of people are interested. This idea of that masculinity is synonymous with violence or war, these other negative stereotypes, when people start to believe this, it makes sense that they would want to neutralize masculinity, if not destroy it altogether. One of the things that to me has stood out as a psychologist is that the American Psychological Association came out with these guidelines about working with men and boys. And it really, in my opinion, pathologized traditional masculinity. The entire document was really full of criticisms of things like a drive for success, a drive for power, a drive for competition, all of which are actually things that can really help society. Are women more dissatisfied in their relationships with men today? Yes. Statistics show that women and men are actually both unhappy. And there could be a lot of different social drivers around that. But I do think it's important to look at and consider the fact that maybe we're forcing people into these politically correct boxes that don't necessarily fit. For example, women don't typically even, say, want to date a man who makes less money than they do. Women typically don't want to date a man who's shorter than they are. That points to the simple fact that women tend to be drawn to a man who is at least able to provide and to protect. I just feel like there's a lack of acknowledgement about the role of men and their contributions. Just like these young women want a man who's going to love and respect them as a woman, I would encourage them to think about offering the same gift to their boys and men. Do you think traditional masculinity is good? I don't think anything traditional is good. I think everything is supposed to evolve. What's traditionally masculine or feminine doesn't work in today's society. Do you think that society needs strong men? Women can be strong too. Talking about women, does society need strong men? I would only say certain jobs. Do we not need men to protect us? I don't think we need men to protect people in particular because I don't really believe on the implications of social gender. What about building the roads and going to war and sewage jobs and construction? Don't we need men for certain things? We need just bodies for a lot of things. What people call manpower is just body power. And guess what? Women have bodies too. Depression for a man is that feeling, nobody wants me. I'm not needed anymore. Basically, I'm out of work. Nobody there to respond to me. Nobody there for me to fix, help, serve, support. I think out of work is the major depression for men or being in a marriage where you feel you can't do anything to make your partner happy. And that's why depression is very different for a man than for a woman. Men and women are different. Biologically, we're different. And to respect those differences is not equality. When the people say we want gender equality, what they're asking for is gender sameness. Men and women are different in a positive way. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that need for seeing a healthy relationship between a man and wife and that effect it has on the kids? Yeah, it's so, so, so important. 25% of children today are growing up in a household without a father. 50% of African-American boys are growing up without a father. You have no role model at all of, I can be a powerful, good man. They don't know what that is. And a good man is someone that women trust. So does my mother trust dad? And the prevailing narrative today is that traditional gender roles aren't necessary anymore because they were completely a result of a social construction. Yes, yes. Let me interrupt. It was a social construction by wise people to make men good and make women happy. That was the social construction that did it. That's why my family could be so happy growing up. It was the 50s. A man could earn enough money to support his wife. She could spend time with her children until they grew up. She could hire help to help her with her children. She could live in a safe neighborhood. That's all gone. Middle class is crashing down. We've gone too far. We've gotten too progressive. And taking a couple steps back into traditional gender roles is probably what we need right now. Well, what suffers is boys. What suffers is girls. Boys don't know what it means to be a man. Girls don't know what it means to be a woman, where you can depend on someone and you don't have to do it all. Our children are confused. John Rosamond has a master's degree in psychology, is the father of two and the grandfather of seven. Can you tell me about how this idea of the family center being the husband and wife has changed throughout your lifetime? The American family over the last 50 years has become a matriarchy. The American father is becoming more and more irrelevant. The dad is not the child-rearing authority. Mom is. The dad's opinion is often treated as irrelevant. His voice is a nuisance. When boys grow up without fathers, they don't understand what authentic masculinity looks like. And they get involved in drugs and they get involved in gangs and they get involved in, you know, other things that are symptoms of a fake masculinity that is overtaking America. Women, a greater and greater percentage of them, really do believe that they can get along without men. Why can't they? Men embody traits that women don't have. And women don't realize it. But when push comes to shove, women will look to men for protection. What are some ways that you've seen as a child therapist that education and child raising has changed that's had a negative impact on young boys? The primary example of this is the diagnosis of ADHD. It took probably three out of every four kids. Our boys, the message is there's something wrong with you and this pill will correct it. I think translating the sense of induced helplessness in our young male population, whenever I hear of a young person in his mid-20s, even early 30s, who's living in the parents' basement, it's always a young man. And I think that this reflects that young men are just kind of losing a sense of purpose. And we don't realize deprecation of the American male is going to seriously weaken American culture. We need men. We need women. But we need men. What's your personal message to boys and young men? Something that a lot of women have wrong about men is they think that men are about domination and control. And I actually think ultimately what men want, I think they want to be loved and appreciated and seen for their sacrifices. And I don't think that's what our society is doing right now. I hope that men would figure out that they were created for God. They were created to be a son, a husband, and a father. And it's okay to be a man. Sharing your life with someone, that's what life is really about. And it's through good relationships with somebody who's very different from you. So many women say, what do I need a man for? Well, you're never going to have a man until you figure it out. I hope that men have the fortitude to stand up against this assault. I don't think that they need to wait for permission from anybody. That's part of the masculine role, I think, is to be able to just assert who he is and to be who he is. My personal message to young boys, young men, is that your highest calling in life is to be a good husband. More than anything else would be your greatest contribution to our culture. When masculinity is vilified, the path inevitably leads to a more feminine culture, dissatisfied women, confused children, and a broken society. But when traditional virtues like assertiveness, strength, and confidence are harnessed for good, they enable men to pursue greatness, protect others, and rise to life's most difficult challenges. So, men, harness your masculinity, seek out responsibility, and lead with courage.