How to Be a Man | Therapist Terry Real Breaks It Down

We can all feel the patriarchy shifting.

What were the negatives? What did the patriarchy do to men?

Well, that's been what I've been talking about for 40 years.

And Simon, I make a distinction.

I talk about political patriarchy, which is just sexism, the oppression of women by men.

And it's all over the world.

You know, everybody knows that.

Sure, as a therapist, what I'm interested in is what I call psychological patriarchy.

And it has to do with invulnerability.

You take a whole human being And you say the qualities on the left are feminine, the qualities on the right are masculine, which is nonsense.

It's bullshit.

And we enforce this having process on boys and girls, and it's traumatic.

We enforce it on little boys.

You know how old? Three, four, five.

Before our sons have learned to read, they know better than to express emotion out on the playground.

They've already read the code.

So, okay, you have to take half of who you are and bury it.

Vulnerability, confusion, weakness, all bad.

Then we have to protect whoever's on the masculine side of that equation.

Even if we're being...

The feminine side is, I have to protect that man, and I have to protect his disowned fragility.

even if he's treating me badly.

If I could love the little boy up inside of him, his bullying or woman, it would all go away.

This is called codependence.

And that is the traditional role.