So now men should NOT open up to their wives? (07-30-2025--Hour2)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for your support. So I found out the other day that there is a word called man keeping man keeping. It's like housekeeping, but with a man. You're keeping a man man keeping. It's apparently it falls under a category of emotional labor, which I also did not know existed. There is a term called emotional labor. Okay. This was a piece at the New York Times, probably inspired by some randoh TikTok or Instagram nutball, But here we are actually no, these nutballs have degrees and they've actually done research on this. For example, Justin leoi yallow lioiya some. Well, I mean, how would you pronounce this one? L ioi liyah wah leoi. Well, I'm gonna call him Justin. Justin is a licensed clinical social worker in Brooklyn, and he specializes in therapy for dudes. When he sees a new client, one of the first things he asks is who can you talk to about what's going on in your life? And much of the time, Justin says that his straight male clients tell him that they rarely open up to anyone except their girlfriends or wives, and that's wrong. You are putting the woman under emotional labor. You are forcing her to do emotional labor for you. Now, before I know what you're gonna say, You're like, well, but I like my wife talks to me about stuff too, so do I. I'm doing emotional labor as well. No, you're not. See, it's different. It's different because women they talk to other women. I mean, they may talk to you too, but that doesn't matter. Well, the only thing that matters is that they talk to other women also about all of these things. I think that's why they all go to the bathroom at the same time. Either that or they're like uploading data to the mothership in orbit. I'm not sure. Much of the time, he says that they say it's their girlfriends or wives and their partners. These wives and girlfriends have become their unofficial therapists quote doing all the emotional labor or doing the work. Yeah, they're doing the work. Okay. I thought, weren't we supposed to be opening up to the women. I wasn't that a big thing. I remember that being a thing. I remember, yes, definitely, because I read a book about it years ago. It was called Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus. And I will save you the trouble. I mean, you should go read it if you want to read about how men and women are different. Which wait a minute, I thought they weren't anymore, that you could be either one. What if I identify as a woman just for my unofficial therapy sessions with Christy? Does that count? I will save you the trouble here of going out finding the book and reading it, although I'm not saying don't. But here's the big takeaway. Men and women are different, very transphobic, and that men and women because they are different, they think things through differently, they work out problems in their heads differently. This was groundbreaking stuff at the time, like I remember reading it, and everybody was talking about this book. Mena from Mars, Women are from Venus and So for example, it's like one of the highest forms of flattery or praise that a dude can offer another dude is to ask him his advice on something, because I will tell you as a dude, we generally don't appreciate dudes coming up and telling us like, you know, this is what you need to do. Your friends will be like, oh, how are you doing this? Oh have you heard about this other thing whatever? But it's like it's it's it's generally considered I think bad form to just roll up on someone as some other guy and be like, hey, you're doing that wrong. Listen to me. I'll give you this advice. This is the way you need to do this thing. But if I come to you when I ask, you should be honored because like, I can't figure this out. So I go to you and you know like mm, caveman burns hand and fire and you say, hm, cavemen get longer stick and it's like, oh my gosh, Like that's that's such a high form of praise. And so guys think things through, or as the book said at the time, that men retreat to their caves to think things through. They have a problem, they have an issue, they're trying to sort it out in their head and that's an internal processing kind of an event. Right now, women again being different, and this is not to say one is better or worse. It's just that we are different and women not all women hashtag not all women like, not all of them, but generally speaking, the argument goes that women process through external means. They talk with each other about a problem or an issue and that sort of thing, and oftentimes they do know what the solution to a problem is, but that's not what they get their satisfaction from or their catharsis from. It's the process of talking that gives them the catharsis right, And this actually causes a lot of problems between men and women where a woman says, you know, I have this problem, and the guy's like, oh, and he thinks she's asking for a solution, not support. So Christy and I have we have, you know, sometimes we'll be like, wait, are you asking for a solution or support? Is this a solution conversation or are you support conversation? Right? And most times it's support because they just they want to talk about it. And a guy hears I got this problem. He says here's the solution. She's like, no, I have this problem, and he's like, yes, here's the solution. He gets frustrated that she's not listening to him offer the solution because to him, solution check the box. Let's move on, right, But that's not where she gets her catharsis, and so then she feels like he's not listening to her, and then they have this argument because she's seeking support, he's offering solutions. Okay, that's the premise of the book. And then they tell all these different stories in the book about that premise. Okay, and then if I remember, they were like, here's how you navigate this stuff. Whatever. So women talk with their friends about their issues, about their problems, and men go and retreat to a cave and think it through themselves. But then they're like, no, you've got to be more emotionally available. You have to you've got to talk about your problems. I want to know how you're feeling aboutthing, what are you thinking about? Like all of this right, And so then men start behaving in this way. This becomes encouraged, and now now we are causing problems by sharing. We are now accused of forcing our loved ones to do emotional labor, that being man keeping, at least according to The New York Times. Well, it's actually according to Angelica Puzzio Ferrara, who coined the term man keeping. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Thank you. By the way, this came from and I have seen this before from John Galt, who is John Gult anyway, this is from a guy named Jason Headley, and this is from several years ago, but it is hilarious. And just picture as a guy and a girl sitting on a couch talking to each other, and here it is. It's just there's all this pressure, you know, and sometimes it feels like it's right up on me and I can just feel it, like literally feel it in my head, and it's relentless, and I don't know if it's going to stop. I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most, is that I don't know if it's ever going to stop. Yeah, well, you do have a nail in your head. She has a nail about the nail? Are you sure? And because I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there, stop trying to fix it. No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing you always do this. You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you. To just listen. See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail now. Okay, fine, I will listen. Fine. It's just sometimes it's like there's this achy I don't know what it is, and I'm not sleeping very well at all, and all my sweaters are snagged, I mean all of them. Yeah, that sounds really hard. It is. Thank you. There you go. Are you looking for solutions or support? Right? And just as a tip, if you use this in a conversation if it's feeling like things are getting tense when you're having a discussion about some problem or whatever, just take a pause and say is this is this? Do you need support or a solution? And don't say it like you're mad about it. Just we need to know, like what it is that you need, what is your emotional need? But now I'm starting to wonder if this is the wrong approach, Because it's not the wrong approach. Keep doing that, but now that I'm aware of this term mankeeping, So okay, so I got I gotta shut down. Don't talk to my wife about the things about issues anything like that, because now I'm placing a burden on her emotional labor. So this is a new name called man keeping. The term was coined by Angelica Puzzio Ferrara, a doctoral fellow at Stanford University, and it has now taken off online. It describes the work women do to meet the social and emotional needs of the men in their lives, from supporting their partners through daily challenges and inner turmoil, to encouraging them to meet up with their friends. That's like everything. So it's like basically being married. Like I have said from the very beginning, Christy and I when we first started dating, like, she is way more extroverted than I am. I'm actually an introvert. People think that's crazy, Pete, how could you be an introvert you're on the radio. It's very simple. I usually just talk to a wall. See, so I'm like facing a blank screen on the studio desktop here. But look, I can function out in you know, big gatherings of people. Sure, it's just more draining for me than it is for her. She's energized by that. I am drained. And that's the difference between introverts and extroverts, and neither one is better or worse. They're just different. Okay, they're just different. But now, according to this research or sorry, postdoctoral fellow, the work women do to meet the social and emotional needs of the men in their lives. I thought that was just part of being married, because like I do that for Christy too. Is that woman keeping I gotta do? I go do? I get a name for that. Now, she does encourage me to meet up with my friends. She does do that, but that's that's part of the deal. Like I turned over all of the social calendar planning basically to her. Unless I need to do something, then I, you know, let her know obviously. But like all of that social butterfly stuff like, that's that's her wheelhouse. And so I consider it comparative advantage to use an economic term, right, that's her comparative advantage compared compared to me. She's much better at keeping up with everybody. We still we'll send birthday cards to like probably hundreds of people. Like every day there's a card on my desk that I have to sign and write some notes on. I didn't ask her to do that. She just does that on her own I'm not. I'm not man keeping her or woman keeping her. I'm not making her do that. Doctor Ferrara says, quote. What I have been seeing in my research is how women have been asked or expected to take on more work to be a central, if not the central, piece of a man's social support system. Okay, I've never asked Christy to do that, and again, I'm just gonna only speak for myself. I have not asked her to do that. Maybe she wants to do that, wants to be that, But again, I always assume that the whole point of becoming man and wife getting married was that you could lean on each other, that you could be that support system for somebody else. I thought that was kind of part of the deal. In fact, I know it was because I promised it in front of a minister and a whole bunch of people at a church. Okay, so I know that's part of what I agreed to. So I don't understand now why this is now some burden that I'm being accused of placing on the woman I love. The concept has taken on a bit of life of its own, with some articles going so far as to claim that mankeeping has quote ruined dating and driven women to celibacy. So once again, it's our fault, guys, It's all our fault. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breathtaking fort teen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions, with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Men keeping. If you'd like to, uh, you want to send me a message on Twitter, It's at Pete Calendar. That's where I got this from Russ. It's a Pete tweet Russ's We have figured out a bunch of hacks in our marriage, many the hard way. The best was her letting me know at the beginning of a conversation if it was a listening or a fixing issue, and her being okay with me saying I don't know what I'm thinking yet, I need more time to figure it out. That's a very good piece of advice too. I say, I tell Christy, I'm like, I have to process this, and as a dude, I generally process this stuff in my own head. I kick it around, I think at different things. It's not to say I go mute you know like I can talk, but like I don't. But so sometimes though when I ask, you know, various questions, and I test these different things in my head as I'm processing something. Then if I'm saying this stuff out loud to Christy, she then sometimes may think that like I'm not, I'm not listening to her. I'm taking somebody else's side on something. And it's not that i'm doing that, it's just I'm simply running through the different angles. Well, maybe they're looking at it from this perspective. Would that make sense? And what would be you know, some evidence that that would suggest that or would disprove that, right, And so in walking these things through, that's that's how I process stuff. So that's a good that's a good second line as well, which is I'm still thinking. I don't know what I'm thinking about it yet, So he says I need more time to figure it out. Russ then says, this man keeping nonsense ties in with that Fraya or Freya India article. Indeed it does. From Friday, I was actually going to do this story on Friday, but then I blabbed too long and I never got to it. But on Friday I talked about this article by Freya India that talked about the therapization of everything and how we are by you know, diagnosing every single idiosyncrasy we have and trying to attach some explanation for it based on genes or trauma or whatever. I mean, genes G E, N E. S. Like, not the Sydney Sweeney genes, but like the your genetics and stuff like, oh, this is the this is the reason why I did this thing or think this way or felt this way or whatever, as if everything is a problem that you can slap a diagnosis on and then get fixed instead of just being a human that we're all just different. We all have different idio idiosyncrasies and that's okay. It's okay. We used to call it personality, right Anyway, back to Russ's message, he says, I'm sure that the PhD who coined the term has a very healthy quote unquote relationship. They're slapping psychobabble labels on totally normal behavior and trying to make it seem weird. At the same time, they're trying to normalize really fringe and destructive behaviors. That is correct, Melissa says, that's why I have no women friends. I'm a problem solver, not a therapist. I don't know. Bob wants to know about gay households. I don't know. I don't know who carries the emotional burden there? Who does the man keeping? Is it a mutual man keeping? I don't know. Doctor Ferrara, who researches male friendship at Stanford's Claimant Institute for Gender Research, along with Dylan Virgara, a research assistant, published a paper on mankeeping in twenty twenty four after investigating why some men struggle to form close bonds, a growing and well documented issue. It's the apps, guys. I don't know. I don't know why you need to do all of the research. It's it's the social media, like video games, social media. Yeah, because it's it's in every demographic category. It's people are isolating themselves. They don't they don't need, they don't need to be in contact with as many human beings anymore. And there's a downside to that. Just like Thomas Soule, right, the uh, the economist, he says, there are no there are no solutions, there are only trade offs. Right, trade offf you have all the information that the world has ever known in the palm of your hand at all times. Downside, you can't pay attention to any of it because your attention span has been so shrunk by the algorithms in that same device. Right, So there you go, right, trade offs. In a. Twenty twenty one survey, fifteen percent of men said they did not have any close friends. Fifteen percent. That is up from an earlier poll asking the same question in nineteen ninety. So what thirty one years ago the number was three percent of men who said they did not have any close friends three percent. Now it's fifteen percent. The same report showed that thirty one years ago, nearly half of young men said that they would reach out to friends when facing a personal issue. That nearly half, so under fifty percent. Two decades later, just over twenty percent said the same. Once again, I will remind you of the book. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Right, I only reach out to somebody if I actually need the help. Right, That's I think what most men do. And if you do it too much, then people start thinking, like you don't have your stuff together, you know what I mean? Like this guy's always asking me for help, Like just like attention seeking thing, and it's always asking to borrow every single tool I have no Actually I'm fine with the lending of the tools unless they don't give them back. But that's why I put in my old address labels. Stick those on there, put them on the tools. Doctor Ferrara found that women tended to have all of these nodes of support they were going to for problems, whereas men were more likely to be going to just their spouse or girlfriend. So men and women are different, right, Men and women are different. See again, it's as I said from the book, like the highest honor you could give a guy is to ask the guy for his advice on something, how to fix something, because it's an admission that you haven't been able to fix it yourself. And so what do we have here? We have a premise, an unstated premise, that the female model is the correct model for men. That's the premise, right, because you're you're comparing, well, women go to their girlfriends all the time for their emotional support and men don't, and the right thing is for women to do that, and therefore the right thing for men is to also do that. Right, But what if it isn't? What if men being different, very transphobic, I know. But men being a little different, they process this stuff differently. Maybe we don't require not all men hashtag not all men, but like not all men, but most men probably may not need this kind of emotional support from their dude friends. I am a dude like I can speak with some authority on this matter, as opposed to doctor Angelica Puzzio Ferrara, who is not a dude as far as I know. Ferrara says man keeping is an important extension of the concept of kinkeeping. The work of keeping families together that researchers have found tends to fall disproportionately on women. Why would that be? May there be some reason why women? Why females have some sort of a greater drive to keep the family unit together. Could there be some reason? Maybe it traces back I don't know, millions of years or something. Is that possible. I'm just spitballing here. I'm not a Stanford Fellow, so I don't know, but I would submit there may be something a little bit instinctive going on there. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past, while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creativevita started in nineteen ninety seven in mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. Let us go to the text line and read some texts. Right now. A couple of people asking about that video that I played. Where was the nail in the head. It was right in the middle of the woman's forehead. She had a nail protruding like a good four inches out of the right, out of the center of her forehead. He said, that's so true and hilarious. Matt says, my wife and I have used that video in premarital counseling for years. It's funny and true. Now look up marriage algebra. I've not heard of that. Rodney says. My vows were to have and to hold, and do as you're told, or I guess as I'm told. Okay, someone's complaining about an and uh this is and that's for the morning show. Okay, So caught up on the text line. So this is the piece from the New York Times why man keeping is turning women off? And then it tells the story of Eve Tillie Coulson, thirty seven years old, who was relieved to stumble upon the concept of man keeping on social media. Finally I have a diagnosis. Right, Yeah. She finds herself offering her live in boyfriend. By the way, they are both lawyers. Okay, so I kid, I kid the lawyers. She finds herself offering him a fair amount of social and emotional scaffolding her role as the de facto social director of the relationship includes more serious concerns too, like when are we going to meet each other's parents? When are we going to go on our first vacation together? So like at like I don't know, sit down and talk about it. How about that? How about you sit down and say, hey, well let's let's book a vacation. Okay, what we do? We want to do it? Look, this works. Christy and I have done this exact thing. I know other couples that do this too. They actually sit down and they talk to each other about going on vacation someplace. Yeah, but now she has a diagnosis. Now she has a way to blame the dude. You're not doing enough. And maybe he's not. I don't know. He didn't even want to give his last name for the interview. He's just like, I'm gonna go by Glenn. He agreed to speak to The New York Times, but first name only. He said when she first described man keeping to him, was that it seemed consistent with what he had seen play out in many heterosexual relationships, and he wondered, Okay, but is that bad? Ms. Tillie Coulson, the woman that's the lawyer, but also she is a content creator, and she made a post about it on TikTok. There you go, the therapization of everything. Right, this same sort of thing that I went over in the in the first hour about the Sydney Sweeney outrage kicked up by these leftists online. Right, it's the same pattern. Some random on TikTok or Instagram does some video. New York Times reporter comes across it, does a story on this random TikTok video opens up this whole world of mankeeping. And now you've amplified this thing. Because I gotta tell you, not for nothing, but if you tell guys that talking to their wives and girlfriends about stuff in their lives, if you tell them that, now you're placing a burden on them. You know what dudes are gonna do. Take it from me, I'm a due ude. Dude's not going to talk to them about this stuff. They're't going to talk to them about anything. So be careful what you wish for over here in New York Times. After this decades long campaign of making men, you know, emotionally available in all of this, and if you need look, I've talked about this. I watch these bachelorette shows or whatever, not religiously, but I watch them with Christy. Christy likes watching the shows and it's one of my It's like junk food. Okay, I like, I got nothing going on tonight, I'll sit down and I'll watch the episode with her. And they all speak in this kind of language. Everything's a diagnosis. Everything is you know, thank you for being vulnerable with me. All this kind of therapy talk all the time, and they all end up alone at the end of the shows. They're like all alone, like I'm just so tired of being played and all this Like yeah, because you created this entirely fake vocabulary instead of just talking to people as if they're real, you know. Now, granted they are on TV and so they you know, and they've got you know, content creation careers ahead of them, so they got to make sure they got to, you know, not make any big mistakes. Rather than viewing mankeeping as an Internet approved bit of therapy speak used to dump on straight men, experts say they see it as a term that can help sound the alarm about the need for men to invest emotionally in friendships. Okay, so guys have have friends. How about that have some friends. I don't know what kind of emotional scaffolding your your buddy is going to provide you. But yeah, it's good. It's good to have friends. There you go, small steps encourage a client to share something new about himself with a friend he already has, or invite a friend he normally sees in only one context to do something new. It's a friendship building concept. But some of the challenges men face and making strong connections are scie til there you go. Many of the institutions in spaces where men used to organically make friends have eroded, like houses of worship, civic groups, and even this simple workplace. What did I say, it's the apps. People are not engaged civically. I have encouraged people to get engaged in civic organizations, in anything, in your church, your ho eight, whatever it is. Become involved for many reasons. But there is actually a good reason for you to do this is that you meet other people and then you can get some emotional scaffolding and you cannot emotionally burden your spouse. How about that? All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone. M m Hm