The Just Checking In Podcast
The Just Checking In Podcast is another step in VENT’s mission to give people a voice, change the conversation around mental health and provide an outlet where everyone, but especially men and boys, can express themselves. In each pod we check in with a special guest. We have a natter and a chat about all things mental health as well as anything and everything else they're passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we'll discuss it!
The Just Checking In Podcast
JCIP #365 - Dr Emily Setty - Part 2
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In episode 365 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked back in with academic Dr Emily Setty.
Emily is currently Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Surrey. Emily has a particular focus on young people’s online and offline sexual behaviours and the evolving challenges of digital sexual cultures.
We first checked in with Emily in JCIP #210 in November 2023.
In that podcast we talked about her wider academic journey and a whole range of issues she’s passionate about, including: the fear of false allegations young boys have, breaking down the myth of 'oppressor vs oppressed' paradigm and how we bridge the divide between young men and young women..
For Emily’s mental health journey, we discussed the sudden death of her father when she was 21 years old and why it was one of several factors which led to her developing an Eating Disorder, which thankfully she overcame.
In Part 2, we discuss the continued work she’s done with men and boys, particularly around the issue of consent.
She is also about to start a new project about how men and boys engage with online content. Emily adopts a mantra of ‘less pathologising, less problematising’.
In addition, Emily is working on a new educational model designed to help all young people and can provide a framework for teachers and educators working with young people.
And finally, Emily is working with a charity about sexual harms online for young boys – both in how they can become victims of it, and what impact does online grooming have on young boys with additional needs or vulnerabilities.
For Emily’s continued mental health journey, she became a mum in October 2025, and we discuss how her life has changed from that moment.
We finish by talking about how she feels about the conversation around motherhood online, particularly given the advocacy of great friend of the pod Freya India and her highlighting of 'The Femosphere’, which she spoke about first in her landmark book GIRLS. This work was then popularised by the viral piece in the New Statesman, which we also discuss.
As always, #itsokaytovent
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Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of the Just Checkin' In Podcast. I'm your host, Freddy Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. In each episode, I check in with a special guest. We have an atta and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. In this episode, I'm checking back in with one of my favourite guests in recent years, and a woman doing amazing work to champion men and boys' mental health, and is one of the best examples I can think of for someone who is listening to men, not talking at them. Dr. Emily Setti is an academic and is currently associate professor in criminology at the University of Surrey. Emily, in particular, has a focus on young people's online and offline sexual behaviors and the evolving challenges of digital sexual cultures. I first checked in with Emily in JCP 210 in November 2023, over two and a half years ago now. Where does that time go? In that podcast, we talked about her wider academic journey and a whole range of issues she is passionate about, including the fear of false allegations young boys have, breaking down the myth of oppressor versus oppressed paradigm, how we bridged the divide between young men and women, and a lot more besides. For Emily's mental health journey, we discussed the sudden death of her father when she was 21 years old, and how it was one of several factors which led to her developing an eating disorder, which thankfully she overcame. In part two, we discussed the continued work she's done with men and boys, particularly around the issue of consent, and a bigger project she's about to start at time of recording to further this work. She is also about to start another new project we'll discuss, which is about how men and boys engage with online content with a mantra of less pathologizing, less problematizing. In addition, Emily is also working on a new educational model designed to help all young people and can give a framework for teachers and educators working with them, which can hopefully help everyone in this space going forward. And finally, Emily is working with a charity about sexual harms online for young boys, both in how they can become potential victims of it, and also what impact does online grooming have on young boys with additional needs or vulnerabilities. For Emily's continued mental health journey, she became a mum in October 2025, and we discuss how her life has changed from that moment. We talk about her experience of fertility treatment, the stigma and shame around that, and how she feels about the conversation around motherhood online. Now she is a mum herself, particularly given the advocacy of my friend Freya India and her highlighting of the Femisphere in her latest book, Girls, which was popularized by the viral piece in The New Statesman, and we have an in-depth discussion about that new statesman piece, the pros, cons, and potential data flaws in it too, which I was surprised to learn about. So this is how part two of my conversation with the wonderful, the legendary, the iconic Dr. Emily Setti went. Emily, welcome back to the Just Checking In Pod. It is so wonderful to check back in with you. I cannot believe it has been two and a half years since we first checked in. You are now mum, you are doing so much amazing work. I actually checked in earlier this week at time of recording with Sophie King Hill, and she had lots of amazing things to say about you as well. We'll get into that in the podcast. First off, how are you on this Sunday morning, pal?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very good, thanks. And oh, it was so pleasing to hear that you've spoken to Sophie. She is awesome. So, yeah, no, I am really good, as you say. A lot has gone on in the last two and a half years that we're gonna be getting into professionally and personally. And I think as we'll go on to explore, I think some of what we've seen over the last two years, progress. It's been kind of forwards and backwards in some respects. And actually, a lot of the themes that we were talking about last time have almost kind of become more complex in their own ways and more prominent, like people talking about this stuff more and more, which is great. I'm just more convinced of the need for the kind of nuanced conversations that you're trying to have here. So let's get into it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very much so. I really try hard not to become like a sort of men's mental health hipster where I'm like, I was speaking about this years ago.
SPEAKER_00You guys are all stealing my thunder, but I've got to let the mainstream take it.
SPEAKER_01I'm just gonna still challenge the mainstream where it gets it wrong. But yeah, I have to really fight the urge not to do that because it's so easy to do. You've been doing lots of amazing work in the time since we last chatted, including some very nuanced and important stuff for young boys. And actually, Sophie referenced some of it on her podcast as well. So I'll make sure I send it over to you when that podcast is out. Without further delay, are you ready to start the show and talk all about the last two and a half years of your journey?
SPEAKER_04Yes, let's do it.
SPEAKER_01I want to start by talking about your professional journey again, Emily, in your part two. So last time we checked in, you were senior lecturer at the University of Surrey. Now you are associate professor, hopefully, Professor Emily Setti soon. Tell me what you've been up to in your work around men and boys to start with, and we'll dive into a few bits as we go.
SPEAKER_02Yes, thank you, Professor Monday, hopefully. But yeah, so the stuff with men and boys, obviously, we spoke a lot, didn't we, about the research that I've been doing around consent and boys and young men's kind of experiences of educational discourses that they've been subject to around consent, and that has developed, and we can talk maybe a little bit about the projects that I'm about to embark upon around that. And then there's also projects that I'm doing with boys and young men around their online engagements and how they're dealing with some of the manosphere world that we're finding ourselves in these days. So, yeah, those are the two kind of main directions that I think we're going to be talking about, right?
SPEAKER_01Very much so. Let's talk about the consent project. Sophie referenced it as she did in her podcast, and also she wrote an excellent article on the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys. So, little gentle one to start off with. Do you think we're in a better place or worse when it comes to the conversation around consent and how men and boys feel about it when it comes to anxieties, trepidation, kind of fear of getting, am I using a quotes here, me too'd, and also their own construction of consent, which I talked a lot about with Sophie?
SPEAKER_02Interesting. So I feel like from the research that I had done, you know, those years ago when I spoke to you, I think there was a lot there around the findings opening up questions that weren't being adequately addressed for boys and young men. Right? We talk about consent through this risk and prevention lens, which is important in some respects. But when you speak to boys and young men about how they're navigating those discourses, it's leaving them feeling quite confused and anxious and hyper-vigilant. Yeah, the whole don't want to get me too'd, like that way of putting it. I'm really quite unsure of how to locate themselves within the conversations, because the boys that I spoke to could kind of see multiple truths at once. Like, yeah, you've got kind of sexual violence against women, and that's really problematic, and we want to kind of recognise and respond to that. But then what are we exactly meant to do as boys and young men? Because we're feeling certain things as well, and and where is the narrative kind of capturing that or not, as the case may be. And so it was really about like the guidance that boys and young men were looking for in a context where they themselves wanted intimacy and connection, right? But all those social expectations and pressures, and as we've seen, these increasingly polarized narratives online. And so I was trying to broaden out consent from not just a kind of legal procedural concept, but one really rooted in what relationships and intimacy feel like for these, you know, boys and men, but also girls and women as well. And I think on the one hand, young people are a lot more reflective and aware about things, maybe than like I was when I was a teenager.
SPEAKER_01They have to be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But that can lead to a feeling of being overwhelmed. There's a lot of language about things, isn't there? Like you've got all the stuff online around like attachment disorders and relationships and red flags, and there's just so much said, but it's almost like knowledge is not power. Actually, that can become different empowering. You're kind of subjected to all of these ideas, but you're still feeling confused and anxious. And in a way, relationships are like this space where things can go wrong and they're anxiety-provoking. And it's how do we create space for ethical reflection around some of the issues that we see, but not leading to that paralysis or fear? How can we make it empowering rather than disempowering, right? Because I think relationships really require that, that kind of vulnerability, right? And the communication and so on. And I'm not quite sure we're there yet with some of that. How do we kind of sit with the inherent uncertainties and complexities of human relationships, right? And how exposing intimacy actually is. I know we're gonna talk about this, but this idea that men and boys hold power, and you think, oh God, you know, I don't know how power really unfolds when it comes to those ideas around intimacy.
SPEAKER_01I spoke to Sophie about this, and I'll ask you again, because legally in the UK, it's not possible for a woman to rape a man, right? And I have spoken to several male survivors of abuse who have had female perpetrators and they felt invisible at the time. And one of the many reasons why they didn't disclose at the time is obviously stigma, it's obviously shame, but it's also this idea that they couldn't even conceive of the idea that they had been abused, right? And from the young men you speak to, have you seen that invisibility have an impact? You know, i.e., do you think, or do they think, sorry, they can say no if a female partner is coercing them to? And do they feel confident to report an incident as well? Because we're talking about systems here. Everyone tells them to reach out, but what happens when they reach out if, God forbid, an incident occurs?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, do you know what I think the way you've almost framed that question would be how I would answer it, because I think it works on two levels, right? So on the one hand, these guys sometimes don't even see what's happening as coercion because it's so normalized that they are like the powerful actor that's like responsible for consent and will be the one that would potentially violate someone else. And then coupled with the idea that like boys and men are sex-driven and they want sex all the time and they're just ready and willing, right? So the coercive dynamic isn't even seen as coercive because those quote unquote sexual scripts, as we call it within the academic world, are so powerful that it doesn't even give space to boys and men to understand these experiences, right? Like, what narrative do they have, even to say actually what is happening to me is coercive. My kind of presumed sexual desire is being played on and manipulated and weaponized against me in ways that are actually non-consensual, right? And that's not okay. But on the other hand, even when that experience is more readily and easily defined as violating, it's still hard to make sense of, right? We still see this persistence of the narrative that boys and men are not the vulnerable parties, right? So even if something's happened to them that is unwanted, well, were they really harmed by it? Was it really a big deal? Like in the end, does it really matter? And well, not does it really matter? Of course it matters, but this idea of it's not as significant as when it happens to girls and women. And I sometimes feel that so with the narrative with sexual violence against women is that it is not only an interpersonal crime, it speaks to a wider power differential in society. So it's harmful on two levels, right? It undermines the woman or girl's kind of bodily rights and autonomy and is like violating in that experience for that individual, but also that it speaks to this big power dynamic in society.
SPEAKER_01So and status, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of them themselves as a sex class. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Exactly right. Whereas boys and men don't have access to that. It's yeah, okay, you might have been violated, and that's really sad for you, but like really, you know, you can get over this because you don't actually lack power more widely. Not to go down a total tangent, but it's almost like, you know, the idea is around reverse racism. Yeah, white people, you know, people might say something to you that we could categorize as racist, but come on, you have all the power, so it doesn't really matter. And so I think we lack a kind of societal discourse to make sense of what happens to men, and then all that shame and stigma that men have to kind of navigate. Because sexual crimes full stop involve shame and stigma, whoever is on the receiving end of it, but for different reasons. And then what I sometimes see happen is that the narrative is oh, well, the reason that men and boys have all the shame and stigma is because that's the patriarchy teaches them that they're meant to be powerful. So actually, what we need to do is dismantle all the patriarchy. And I'm like, oh, well, that's a handy frame of reference, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Indeed.
SPEAKER_02You know, we're rerouting it back to the patriarchy, right? Nice one. But on the other hand, it's saying, okay, maybe all of that is true, but then we might need to re-evaluate some of our theories about power because actually men and boys don't always hold power. And that's something that we do need to grapple with a little bit more. And if we're talking about how have things have changed over the last two and a half years, I don't know how well we are dealing with that idea that men and boys don't always have power. I think we're like there is still a discomfort with that in the kind of mainstream discussion around some of this stuff. And I think it plays out a lot in your question around what happens to men and boys who experience sexual violence or coercion.
SPEAKER_01Very much so. And again, with the reporting aspect, if they go to institutions and helplines and they are rejected from that, we know how damaging that will be for the long-term impact of them, whether it could lead to suicidality, whether it could lead to grievance against systems against women themselves, for example. So lots of things to discuss there, but it's a separate podcast. Before we move on to the online project, group work obviously has lots of merits, as is shown in Friend of the Pod, our mutual friend Richard Pomfret's work with Boys to Men. And there's lots of advantages to it. However, for an issue like this, which is so sensitive and needs so much care and attention, one-to-one work feels like a much better approach for getting more authentic answers, for building trust and disclosure. Is that why you took that approach?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. So with this consent project that's coming up, for me, yes, absolutely, this is why I did it. Because in the first consent project, it was group-based. So you're speaking with like these teenage boys in groups and about how they're experiencing all of this stuff, right? And you know, these are really powerful spaces, as you say, because all those norms and narratives that boys and men are navigating and creating, sometimes themselves, you know, as part of all of that, can be surfaced and examined, and you can watch how they kind of react to each other, and it can be quite a sort of empowering, meaningful process for them all to go through as a group. And I think that's really, really valuable, and we don't want to get rid of that. But then you do see that the personal experiences sometimes get a little bit lost because these group contexts, don't they, they involve their own dynamics and performances, right? And I remember like when I was doing that research, and you see certain sort of body language and like non-verbal reactions of the boys, and I'm thinking, oh yeah, you're not quite endorsing what's being said here, or you're not quite situating yourself in in all of this. And and I think giving space for individuals to really articulate how things play out for them is so important as well, and to show them that they are worthy of that, that they're worthy of having that conversation and like centering themselves in all of that, um, and to make sense of their own stories and their own ambivalences because I don't think we almost know, and I don't mean this in a terms of people don't understand themselves in a patronizing kind of way. I'd say this about this inherent nature of the kind of human condition. I sometimes don't think we always understand ourselves that well and like the experiences that we've had and the journeys that we've been on until you start talking about them. So when you invite someone to narrate, tell me what your story is when it comes to your relationships and your experiences of intimacy. And it can really be in that moment of doing that that you start to make sense of things, right? And I'm really excited to be able to go through that process with guys like one-on-one and say, you tell me what your story is, and like together, like let's try and figure out what this might all mean and how you might want to think and feel about it. And maybe by the end of the conversation, it could be very different. Like as much for me as for the person I'm talking to. Like, what can we both learn from some of this, right? So, yeah, I think both have their place, but this project is really getting into that for sure.
SPEAKER_01Let's talk about the next exciting project, which is one around young men and boys' engagement with online content, very popular subject right now. Your approach with this when we spoke off air was less pathologizing, less problematizing. So just unpack that for me. And what is different, in your opinion, about this project that isn't being served by the conversation in the mainstream?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. So I think this idea that boys are almost kind of broken or deficient in some way, and that that almost makes them more dangerous because that is being manipulated and weaponized by this online content, right? I think that framing is problematic because I think it shuts down that curiosity about what might be happening because we already think we know what's happening, and then we go to look for evidence around well, how is this kind of broken boys playing out? So we're already starting from an a priori assumption, and that's what we don't want to do in this project. We want to be curious about what this might mean without kind of collapsing it all down into whatever ideas we have about the problematic manosphere, right? You know, I know we spoke about it off-air and we don't want to get into it or whatever, but some of the depictions of the manosphere that we see in like public discourse, it's almost as though they have trailed the internet for the worst excesses of humanity, and then they have depicted that as the norm. And that feeds back into that kind of alarmist.
SPEAKER_04That loop. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I'm like, no, let's not do that. Let's understand the adolescent experience, you know, being a young guy or whatever, as really about that search for meaning and identity and all of the stuff that we've all been through, right? Forget the online world for a minute, right? We all want that belonging, we all want that recognition to be able to make sense of who we are and situate ourselves within all of that. And we know now, yes, online spaces provide a language and an opportunity for some of those processes. And it can be destructive at times, absolutely. Sometimes it can be constructive, sometimes it can be a bit of both. But in this project, we don't want to be looking at this from a political kind of macro level. I am gonna diagnose what is happening here. It's about like what are the human questions that we see unfold around what young men and boys are trying to do in this space, right? I think if we enter into it with like this kind of panic that something bad or dangerous is happening, we might strengthen the very dynamic that we're worried about. Like you see, you're just kind of pushing it even further, right? Because you're rushing to judgment. And I think a lot of the mainstream conversation that we see is still operating at that level of diagnosis. Like, who are the harmful influences? What are the problematic ideologies? What's the dangerous content? And I think what we're trying to do with this project is a much more grounded understanding of what boys are actually doing in these spaces and how they're interpreting and making sense of it as like active and agentic within this process rather than just completely passive, right? So it's curiosity. Again, it's being curious. I want to learn from you, and maybe I will change my mind. I'll learn something rather than I've got a theory that I'm setting out to prove.
SPEAKER_01I use this uh Simpsons quote with Ashley Frawley on our part two. I always love a Simpsons quote, the listeners will know. And I kind of Said that I feel like the mainstream conversation around men and boys is when Homer applies to be a prison warden to protect Bart when he goes to juvenile prison and he gets interviewed, and the warden says like something along the lines of like, Why do you want to work? And he says, Well, I believe children are the future unless we stop them now. And that's how I think that a lot of the conversation is talking to boys. And one of the reasons, or one of the amazing reasons I love you and your work, Emily, is that you listen to boys, you engage with them, you don't demonize them. If they have some view that might be a little bit problematic, you don't say, Oh, that's completely wrong. Let's find a narrative, let's find a pathway that maybe you can change your mind on that or you can evolve it. And I saw a clip on a podcast recently, and I think it speaks to this problem a little bit. The female guest was talking about like this need to tackle misogyny with like 10-year-old boys. And I just kind of felt so sad. I felt like this kind of encapsulates a lot of my frustrations. It's like this imposition that these boys are going to be bad unless we stop them. This kind of almost adultification of boys in a way that I don't think you would do with young girls if they had some problematic views about young boys or they didn't like boys their age, etc. How would you respond to that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. I think like the language that we use here is so important, isn't it? And how importing that adult political language onto children, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah is because misogyny means hatred of women. It's a hatred of women.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it is that constructive because there's two levels you can kind of look at this, right? On a principled level, should we utilize those kind of frameworks and terms when we're talking about children and young people? It's probably not appropriate for understanding the way in which a developing individual is making sense of you know their peer cultures and their identity and all the rest of it, right? Even if kids are saying things that are like provocative or exclusion-real, you know, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01That was the example. I think she the example she was using was like the boys were playing football when they gave the girls a day to play football and they were a bit up in arms about it. But I'm like, they're kids. That doesn't mean they hate girls. Like they were obviously just a bit frustrated, came from the wrong place. Just talk to them, just figure out the right way forward. Don't say they hate girls or hate women. It's like, fuck me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it can be the performance of certain narratives or whatever, you know, in peer groups, experimentation and status and insecurity sometimes, there's so much going on. And I think if we collapse all that complexity into misogyny, we're kind of doing a disservice, right? At the same time, also practically, even if we I don't know, maybe you've got a 10-year-old boy that hates girls, but is it pragmatic, even if we're thinking, well, if the goal is how do you create like really healthy, positive cultures and relations for boys and girls in schools, say, for example, is it even useful to go in saying this is all about misogyny? Is there other ways of exploring it that would actually better achieve your own goal, right? I don't think lecturing from the top down, this is very misogynistic. Do you not realise?
SPEAKER_00That will work with young boys, sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it's kind of conceptually flawed and it's pragmatically flawed. So it's not necessarily what I'd kind of want to go down, and and you are from the outset reifying that idea that boys, as you imply in your question, they're sort of dangerous until they're managed, and that reification of that kind of power dynamic, because implicit in that framing is yes, boys are dangerous, and then girls are vulnerable. So already you've perpetuated that kind of narrative that oppressor, oppress, it's already in place.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I know we spoke about that so much in the first podcast. We want to be entrenching that idea so early on.
SPEAKER_01We've talked about schools there. So let's talk about your next project, which is this educational model you're developing for working with all young people, not just boys. And you use this idea of safe uncertainty, which has echoes to another idea I had with another great guest, and he talks about a brave space instead of a safe space. And I think both terms can be used in different ways. Uh, previous guest Sam Gravestock talked about it in his work with men. What did you mean by safe uncertainty? And tell me about the model that you're developing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. So, full disclosure, it was not a term that I invented. Yeah, so must give credit where it's due. It came from systemic therapeutic practice, right? But when I learned about it, I thought, wow, okay, I think this could work in an educational environment. So it's not about what we deliver educationally. So it's not about content or like a PowerPoint resource on whatever. It's the way in which we enter into educational conversations with young people. It's how we deliver education, basically. It's our posture, our orientation to that. And in a safe uncertainty framework, it's about recognition that intimacy, relationships, development, all of this stuff that we're trying to support young people with is inherently complex. There aren't easy answers. Life relationships are ambiguous, they're ambivalent. And we need to be able to sit with that. This is the uncertainty part of it, right? We need to sit with that complexity rather than rush to solve it. You know, if we think about the um consent idea, rather than kind of rushing in and going, well, this is what the law says around consent, and yes means yes, and no means no, and et cetera. And also, as we've already sort of touched upon, rushing in with too many big theories about who has power and who doesn't, and who needs to take responsibility and all the rest of it, right? Instead, it's about, yeah, some of those binary ideas, some of those factual, sort of simple solutions, like deceptively simple solutions in a way, like this is how we should understand it and this is what we should all be doing. Instead, it's saying, Yeah, actually, life is a little bit more complicated than some of that. So can we sit with that uncertainty and explore it and make sense of it, right? But doing so, this is where the safe side of it comes in, doing so in a kind of structured, boundaried way that is about that, well, what we really want here is to be able to have safe, healthy, fulfilling relationships and experiences. How do we get to that? But not by pretending that uncertainty doesn't exist. How can we engage with uncertainty in a safe way? Because a lot of education tries to remove uncertainty. It tries to say, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, there are all these complexities, but the way that we deal with that is through these rules, through these binaries and scripts, right? And then young people leave thinking, oh, well, I understand all these rules and ideas, but they don't resonate with me. And it's at that point of ambiguity that I think we really need to engage with. For example, when boys say, Yeah, I really care about violence against women and girls, and I really want to be a responsible, decent man ultimately in the life of women and girls, but like I don't always feel very powerful, I don't always feel in control, and I don't always know what to do. Rather than going, oh, well, you know, that's an expression of your kind of patriarchal privilege, you're being entitled. It's saying, yeah, can we sit with that, like ambivalence? Can we go in on that a little bit more and talk about that a little bit more and create environments then educationally where that complexity feels safe, like that boy feels safe to be able to talk about that and about that confusion and uncertainty that they're experiencing. And rather than trying to solve it, we can really support these kids to say, yeah, life is uncertain. Let's start to tolerate that uncertainty and sit with it for a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_01Finally, and perhaps the most important work you're doing right now out of all these new projects is your work on online sexual harms young boys might be victims of. Now, when it comes to something like intimate image abuse, there are various forms. One form of them, sex torsion, 98% of victims are male. There are other forms where women are majority victims, right? And we also know, and I spoke about this with Sophie, that very sadly, and it's sad for me because I'm diagnosed with autism myself, autism is overrepresented in the sexual offences population in the UK. I can't speak for other countries, obviously. Tell me about your work on this, how you're helping to support young boys who have gone through this, and particularly on the autism side, help autistic boys who might be victims of it, and hopefully stop autistic boys because of various traits and factors, from God forbid becoming perpetrators.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. So I guess there's two things there, isn't there? There's sex tortion stuff. So I've done a lot of research around young people's involvement in image sharing online and with each other and all the issues that might arise from that. Like the positive aspects of digital intimacies and how our lives are unfolding on that level, but also where it becomes abusive. And something that I have tried to push back on through all of that work is the shame that imbues all of these harms, right? The only reason in a way that image-based sexual abuse is so powerful is because of the shame that it relies upon, right?
SPEAKER_01It's like a sexual fraud. Yeah. And if you're defrauded, you feel shameful, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Your image gets leaked and it's oh, reputational damage, you know, your employer might see it, your your mum might see it. And you think, you've been the victim of a crime. You know, like if I was burgled tonight and I went into work the next day, my employer is not gonna fire me or cause some issue, right? I will be seen as a victim of a crime. If you are a victim of a sexual crime, particularly where like there is something tangible there that everyone can kind of see, it's like the image of you, isn't it? It's almost like you're the one that suffers the reputational damage. And sex torsion crystallizes all of that. Sextortion specifically involves the weaponization of that shame by a perpetrator. And for boys and men who do seem to be being targeted with this, it's an often deceptively, like you say, it's like the catfishing thing, and they've been led down this thing, and then suddenly they've shared images in one context, and then it's yeah, actually, it wasn't what you thought, and we're now going to extort you for money for more images for whatever. And you think, wow, so much is being weaponized there. And the fact that some of these boys and men are feeling suicidal rather than able to report their experiences shows just how toxic that shame has become and how important it is on all of this stuff around images to push back on that shame. It goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning around boys and men that are victims of sexual coercion and sexual violence and how vital it is to deal with some of that shame. And the idea that your desire for intimacy can be so exploited, and that in and of itself makes you so vulnerable. It goes back to what I was saying, like the desire for intimacy is an inherent vulnerability, right? You're putting yourself out there like it's cringy almost, isn't it, to desire intimacy? And when somebody weaponizes that and potentially makes it public, the harms that can be caused by that are so deep. And I think we need to give a lot more space for that and how boys and men can be affected by that. On the autism side, that relates to research that Sophie and I, you know, your other podcast guests that you mentioned at the beginning, Sophie and I conducted together looking at boys who have been involved in online sexual behaviors where they are kind of almost defined and as having done something inappropriate, like looked at inappropriate imagery or whatever, but then you look underneath it and you realize the level of vulnerability that those boys are experiencing. And around that idea, it's very difficult. I don't know what your opinion of this is, but it's very difficult to avoid the kind of deficit narrative around some of this. So, okay, the kids with autism, they can be socially isolated, they're more likely to spend time online, they're more likely to misread interactions online that are actually kind of harmful or inappropriate or where they're getting exploited, and they don't really understand consent properly, and so on and so forth. And that's why they may, on the one hand, both be more likely to be victimized, but also might be more likely to get themselves involved in inappropriate behaviour online. And so I think something that, and I don't know what Sophie said about this, but something Sophie and I were kind of grappling with with the project was how do we situate those vulnerabilities in a way that actually encourages the adults in these kids' lives to be more aware and supportive of those boys earlier on? Because what we found was that for some of these boys, their vulnerability, including sometimes of having been groomed themselves online, was only coming to the attention of adults in their lives when the police were knocking on the door saying this boy has done something wrong. And you think, well, hang on a minute, where could that vulnerability have been identified and responded to early? And often, just one final thing to say on this some of these boys looked for all intents and purposes like they were doing quite well. They were doing well at school, you know, they weren't causing a bother, they weren't antisocial in terms of getting into trouble or whatever, but they were often spending a lot of time upstairs in their bedrooms on their computers. But their parents were like that, they were doing really well at school and they seemed pretty okay. You know, we didn't really feel we had anything to worry about. So it's about how do we identify and respond to vulnerability before these kids find themselves victimized or in trouble, but in ways that doesn't goes back to our earlier question, doesn't pathologize or problematize the boys themselves. It looks at the systems and the structures and the recognition around those boys.
SPEAKER_01The listeners can't see, but you're uh currently being a super mum and uh multitasking with the Babby and speaking to me at the same time, which is a great credit to you, and I'm very privileged you're doing this. So I'm gonna reflect quickly and then you can take a break. So in the last two and a half years, what's been your proudest achievement on this chapter of your journey?
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, what a question. So, I mean, being promoted was amazing. I took that as a win, and I really did enjoy that. I didn't see it coming, so it was really great news. But do you know what I think on a more sort of deep level, I guess, because that's all about oh, what's your title, what's your status? You know, you've kind of got to transcend some of this nonsense. Sometimes haven't you? You know, we fight for promotions, you're happy for all of five minutes, and then you're looking for the next thing. So, in some senses, that's just the way we all live, isn't it, in our society? But I'd also say, like, the reception to some of the ideas I'm trying to put out there, I think has been really heartening, somewhat disheartening, though, as well, because sometimes I think when you're female and you talk about boys and men, you get to say stuff that men can't say.
SPEAKER_01Sophie said this. I was surprised to learn that. I was surprised to learn that. Yeah, yeah. I thought it'd be the other way around.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've got away with a lot more because so I've been to conferences where like a guy will stand up and say something exactly the same as what I'll say, and you get people in the audience go, excuse me, like you're a man, and you know, is this actually just an expression a little bit of your power and privilege that you're making these arguments? Whereas if I say it's like, oh well, a woman's saying it, so you know, like we can't kind of push back in quite the same way.
SPEAKER_01They've got no Uno reverse card, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's made me feel almost privileged to be able to say certain things, but also like responsible for doing it in a way that actually furthers the interests of everybody in this space, right? I want to be like a reverse ally, you know, like we say, oh, men need to be allies to girls and women and all the rest of it. And I'm like, yeah, I think I also need to be an ally as well. I need to be careful about what I say to make sure it's really advancing the rights and the interests of everybody involved in this space. Because maybe sometimes I do get to say stuff that can't just be like packaged up again as like, well, you're just a man, and you would say that. So I'm like, yeah, what can I say that can actually further this conversation in constructive directions? And I really am happy that I've landed on this safe uncertainty framework because it's a way of saying we can acknowledge and hold multiple truths at the same time. Yes, violence against girls is important, it's awful, we need to be dealing with it. But boys and young men don't always feel powerful, and indeed, they don't always hold power in every situation. Safe uncertainty allows us to hold those truths at the same time and look beyond those zero-sum games of power and really think about the complexities of the human condition when it comes to intimacy and relationships for me, right? And it's giving people a language to do that. So sometimes when I'm saying something that might be a bit controversial and people might disagree, I can use it as a way of saying, yeah, these truths coexist. We can sit with all of these ideas. Let's do a little bit of that and think about how to navigate it. So I am, like in terms of your question, really proud to have been able to develop that and use it for what we're trying to achieve.
SPEAKER_01Very much so, pal. And well done for all of the work that you're doing. Final question, and then you can take a little break. What has this chapter in the last 2.6, 0.7 years taught you about yourself on this professional journey that's been perhaps different from part one?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. So I think now my primary motivation in life is really to understand people and where they're coming from, right? And what things look like from their angle. I've noticed this idea that people think that they understand other people in this space without actually having listened to what they're really saying. And they're like, oh yeah, you're saying this because you think in this way, and because you have all of these ideas, right? And I'm like, have you actually listened to what they've said? I'm not saying you'll necessarily agree with them, but if you actually just pause for a minute and think, well, if I look at the world through their eyes and I understand their framing of this, I might be able to better understand why they're saying what they're saying. I still might disagree with them and I still might come at it from a different angle, but at least we're going to be speaking about the same thing. Something that I've noticed is like different sides, quote unquote, of debates can just be speaking past each other because it's almost like they're speaking to the projected idea of what they think the other side is saying rather than the substance of what they're saying. I guess it goes back to all of those logical fallacies from like philosophical logic, right? I actually want to understand what people are really thinking and feeling and how they're coming into the conversation. And I don't think I want to win anymore. I don't always know what I think and where I sit. I'm genuinely interested in the different dimensions, right? And I'm so put off now by the kind of polarization and tribalism and that conscious anger almost, and the way that can preclude all the curiosity really that I think I want to bring to this. And that's why the whole safe uncertainty idea really resonated with me because it was a way of kind of encapsulating some of what I think I want for myself and the life I want. I think certainty can feel very emotionally protective. Like we want to be part of a tribe, we want to feel safe within all of those narratives and the doubt and the contradiction and the vulnerability, right? We want to kind of avoid some of that. But I think it closes us off from each other. I think curiosity, you know, think about it in your relationship, right? Where defensiveness can be the kind of default. Like if my husband says something to me and I'm like going in to defend myself, but you want to protect yourself. But if I like pause, breathe, okay, how am I? Let me be curious about what you're saying. I'm not gonna try and win over you. I'm gonna try and be curious as to why you might feel the way that you feel. And we can then work from there. I'm not saying we think you're completely right, but like let's start from that beginning point. And I feel like that happens interpersonally, but if we then even like went from that interpersonal level of how do we do this one-on-one? How do we then do that as part of groups? How do we do that as part of political tribes, right? It's so funny to me, like when you listen to a podcast with politicians who are from completely different perspectives and how they talk to each other when they're just like working stuck through on a podcast versus all the performative politics that you see in the houses of parliament. And you think, how can we get rid of some of that like performativity, the defensiveness, the tribalism to really try to understand each other? And I think some of that is where I've gone over the last like couple of years for sure.
SPEAKER_01We've talked all about the amazing work you're doing in your professional journey right now, Emily. Let's go deeper and talk about your mental health journey once more. So, how do you reflect on part one? What feedback did you receive? Hopefully some nice DMs. And who's the Emily we meet now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. So no, feedback was great and really, I guess, reflects what I'm saying about people's engagement with my ideas and points more generally. And I think that idea of my concern around how kind of polarizing things can get. And I know we were just talking of there around how you navigate that while kind of staying true to yourself. And I think do you alienate people? Do you push back? And I don't know whether I've quite figured out that. You know, we do live in very polarized times. And sometimes I do pick my battles.
SPEAKER_01So do I, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I don't always know how authentic I'm being, how brave I'm being.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of self-sensory going on. I'd tell you that for free.
SPEAKER_02Exactly right. And there are people out there who I like really respect. And then they put something out there, and I think, oh, I don't know if I quite see it that way. But then I make decisions around, oh, well, how much do I push back or not? And because you don't want to alienate, you do need your tribe. You don't want people to turn against you. And so I think I am still grappling with that a little bit. And I suppose it speaks to that idea of like the vulnerability, right? Of the human condition. And I'm not going to be all high and mighty around having transcended all of that. I think I am still trying to make sense of that a little bit. Certainly. I know we're going to talk about it more in this section around becoming a mum and how that feels. And the kind of, I suppose, wealth that I want for young people because I feel a lot more, you know, You've got skin in the game now. Yeah, literally. Yeah, right. And how I'm going to guide my daughter through that and the role model I want to be for her around some of that, right? So I say maybe it's a bit of an open answer to your question. I don't quite know. I'm still on this journey.
SPEAKER_01I want to talk now about motherhood because you became one in October 2025 with your daughter. She's featured on this podcast. The listeners can't see, but maybe if we do a video clip, she might feature. Who knows? She was born five weeks premature, so it wasn't smooth sailing. And you also, I imagine, underwent a transition yourself, biologically, psychologically, everything else in between. A book called Matrescence talks about this quite a lot. It was coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s, and the book is by Lucy Jones with the same name. Have you read the book, first of all? And do you have any commonalities with that experience altogether?
SPEAKER_02I have not read the book, so tell me, what's it conveying there?
SPEAKER_01So basically, it's the process of becoming a mother encompassing the profound physical, psychological, and emotional changes a woman experiences during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. And it involves a total restructuring of identity, relationships, and hormones similar to puberty.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes, I would absolutely endorse all of that. And yeah, my experience, I guess, has been shaped by the fact that our daughter was premature and everything that we went through. So I suppose there's no universal, is there? It all depends on your circumstances. But yes, something very profound does happen. And it is almost kind of physical and biological as much as kind of social and emotional and relational. And yeah, absolutely, it's intense and very surreal. The enormity of the responsibility of bringing a life into the world is mind-blowing and it's wonderful. And for me, it has been, you know, very joyful. I know we'll we'll speak about that in a moment. I've really kind of lent into it in a very kind of positive way. So I feel very lucky that whatever was going on for me, biologically and hormonally, enabled me to go down that route. You know, I don't know what it would feel like to be more kind of alienated and kind of post-partum depression and things like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not have the attachment. Sure, sure. I've covered it on the podcast, it's very horrible. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Exactly right. And you're almost, it's by luck, because when our daughter, yeah, being premature, I remember the um health visitor said with that experience, she would see women almost go down like one of two directions. You real risk of postpartum anxiety, depression, or it can be a very bonding experience, and you almost feel more bonded because you're almost trauma-bonded. Yeah, and you kind of go down that route. And she says it's sort of a throw of the dice. You don't know how your hormones of biology are going to react. So there's no kind of shame in either direction. But for me, if I'm just speaking personally, I feel very lucky around like the direction that I went through. But that's not to say, oh, it was terrifying and uncertain and all of that, absolutely. But I found a lot of meaning through this process in a way I know we're going to speak about it more, that isn't always being captured in some of the kind of discourses that you see online around this and feminist kind of perspectives on motherhood and so on. This idea of kind of exhaustion and resentment, and you lose yourself. That isn't my experience right now.
SPEAKER_01Or resentment at the dads as well. I saw a lot of that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Who knows what? And hopefully my husband won't mind me saying this, but I feel more bonded with my husband. It's almost been like a lease of life for both of us. We're going through a kind of second honeymoon. We feel like more in love, we feel more connected to each other. And again, I don't know whether it's just luck of the draw that you get that. I have not had the experience that some of the dominant narrative around this implies for sure.
SPEAKER_01Going deeper then on that point, is it an idea of this kind of like teamwork idea where, you know, taking shifts and swapping around and like collaborating? Whereas, you know, if you weren't in a stable relationship or someone wasn't as supportive, then that resentment would build. But if you're in it together, I'm speaking hypothetically, even though I've got five nephews, I've got no fucking clue what I'm talking about, really. Is there that idea of that teamwork and partnership and it strengthens through a child? Would that be right to say?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. You realise, I mean, I don't want to get too like psycho-evolutionary over it. You realize, yeah, how important it actually is. Like, how much of the value is valuing each other and giving space to each other, right? Like, you see how differently men and women kind of react to things and like what will trigger you as a monk? My husband will be like, huh? Like, and then likewise, what kind of matters to him in a way, and you realize, yeah, we're geared up to play these roles. Like, let's give each other space to be able to play these roles and realise how complementary they are. And I'm gonna kind of be really proud of everything that you're doing as a dad and the way your mind is kind of clicking into gear and working is designed almost to complement how my mind is kicking into gear. So I guess it goes back to that curiosity idea and like giving space to each other around, yeah, we're not, you must understand me, and don't you realize me as a mum? It's yeah, this is me as a mum. How wild is that? Tell me what it's like that you're thinking right now as the dad, and can we really bond through some of that, right? It's not that zero-sum game or being competitive. Actually, there's this really nice, almost third space that we can create. There's like the mum brain over here and the dad brain over here, and then we can get this really nice overlap going on, which is basically this crazy love that we have for our daughter. And um, and also I think that sense of obligation, like, you know, we say to each other, like, this is our unit now. We can really get this right if we want to have this really beautiful relationship with our daughter. And something that we think about, I don't know if it's Jordan Peterson or someone has said this, like, think about what will enable you to have a really great relationship with your daughter when she's an adult. Like, how can you kind of work together as a team to create this environment for her that will mean she wants to come back to you? So I'm like, yeah, and me and you have got to kind of really work at this because that's what's on the line now. Like me and you together, because that's what Olivia, our daughter, is gonna be a part of. So it's given us a whole new lease of life, a whole new set of motivations to have a really positive relationship with each other, but in an empowering way rather than a like, oh God, this is you know really stressful and overwhelming.
SPEAKER_01My older sister is also called Olivia, so you picked a good name. In your professional life, your work focuses predominantly on helping men and boys, giving them a positive vision, working with them, helping them navigate these life choices and difficult life paths, breaking down that oppressor-oppressed paradigm, right? And as a byproduct, hopefully help them avoid or kind of critically assess and maybe dismiss these toxic male content creators. But in your personal life, as a mum, you have to navigate this new sphere that is coming. My friend Frey Rindia wrote about it and was one of the first to write about it. The femisphere, it's now being called. If we're talking about Star Wars, it's the dark side and the even darker side, right? So, when you were first exposed to this algorithm and you were seeing these female content creators talking, I don't know, disparagingly about motherhood or disparagingly about their male partners or just men in general and they aren't mums, how did you feel? Did it shock you? And just give my listeners a couple of examples if they are completely in the dark about and have been living under a rock.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, do you know what before I'm gonna answer your question? When you were framing the question, it was making me almost laugh inside my own head because having a daughter, when I was pregnant, I obviously don't know what you're gonna have. And I thought, do you what? If I have a boy, I so know what I'm kind of doing. I can deal with a teenage boy. I've had all these conversations with these teenage.
SPEAKER_00You of all people, mate, you were prepped.
SPEAKER_02I was like, no, as a mum, you know, I kind of know as like a mum what a teenage boy would need to hear and how to kind of support a teenage boy. Then when I found out I was having a girl, I was like, flipping heck, I'm gonna have to like get my head around the phemosphere and like how girls feel about stuff. And I was like, Whoa, because a lot of like kind of friends and stuff, they were like, Oh, you know, as a mum having a girl, you must feel more knowledgeable and whatever. And I was like, no, I actually totally don't because I spent the last like five years focused loads on poison men.
SPEAKER_01So so that was kind of a bit of an essentialist idea as well, actually, to say, oh, just because you're a woman now you're having a girl, it means you must know everything.
SPEAKER_02I thought that's a little bit problematic of you, isn't it? You know what? Absolutely, and like I know we totally go in time with that. I was shocked by the number of people that said, Oh, you must be so pleased as a woman you're having a girl. And I was like, Whoa, really? Like, is that what you think? Like, I found that a really interesting framing, which I guess is a whole kind of another.
SPEAKER_01Wow, there's a lot to unpack there, mate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it really is, isn't there? And I I had quite a few people, not everybody, a lot, you know, friends and families, but I never said that. So I'm not saying everybody said it, they totally didn't, but I did have a couple of people say it, and I I was really intrigued. I was like, oh, interesting to me that you would say that. But yeah, in terms of your kind of actual question about femisphere and narratives around motherhood in particular, yeah, I found it really fascinating on some level. Some of it is really supportive and honest. I quite like the kind of breakdown that like motherhood has to be this perfection. You get these like mum influencers out there who are like, yeah, the whole thing's a total mess. And we're kind of I love those.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's brilliant. And some of it is done in a really comedic way, and I think that can be really nice because as much as I've loved becoming a mum, you have no idea what's going on, and it is trial and error, and you've almost semi-well, worry, I've semi-traumatized my child because they've been crying for like an hour and I have no idea what to do. And actually, it was something really simple that I could have sorted out right at the beginning, and I didn't. And you think, oh my goodness, I've completely ruined my child for life because of this. And there's a lot of content online that's great that really breaks that down and makes you feel a lot better about yourself, and it's really lovely. On the other hand, I don't know whether how I would even frame it like cynicism almost about nihilism?
SPEAKER_01Is it something like that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And I guess it's kind of really adversarial because you've got all the trad wife stuff that says that the only meaning in life you can ever have is by being a wife and a mother, and we all need to get back to that.
SPEAKER_00And give up your job and move to some Montana forest with a lake, just like nah, come on, man.
SPEAKER_02Do you know what I do? I do understand the desire for simplicity. The modern world is very individualistic and like you've got to be in the workplace and you've got to be whatever. And do you know what? Becoming a mum, I'm almost like, can I just win the lottery and stay at home with my baby today and just exit the rat race? But do you know what's really amazing? My husband says the same thing. He's like, Yeah, I want to win the lottery and spend all day with Olivia. This isn't a male-female thing, you know. Actually, I get the trad wife thing. And my husband's like, Can I be a trad wife? Can I stay at home and bake cakes with Olivia all day? And actually, there is a part of like, forget the male-female dynamic. Like, I totally get the desire to just want to bring things back to a little bit more simplicity and that whole fighting for a promotion and battling dynamics at work. Yeah, wouldn't we all rather just give up that up a little bit? So I'd love to get back to what emotional needs are we articulating when we are attracted to certain ideas? And how can we break that down on a less gendered level? On the other hand, though, the reactionary side of that is like, no, motherhood is oppression. Don't be tied down, you're almost kind of being boxed in, and so on. And yeah, online, we all know how the algorithm works. It rewards that kind of extreme, you know, the extremities of these positions. Rather than what are some of these narratives really speaking to? I mean, I love my work, I get loads of self-actualization by my work, but I also get a lot of actualization by having a child. As I was saying before, we can hold multiple truths at once. We don't have to necessarily be so divisive around that. And I think thinking of like the nihilism and the cynicism that comes from some of this, I think almost cynicism and nihilism looks like wisdom, you know, and then the idea of actually being sort of hopeful of feeling really positive about being a mum, almost it's oh well, you're suffering from false consciousness. That's a kind of the trap of the patriarchy that you're gaining meaning through being a mum. And I'm like, no, maybe I can just gain meaning through being a mum. Maybe it isn't this whole politicized kind of endeavour actually, like I can just feel that emotionally. It's that way of holding emotions and subjectivity at the same time as you know, the more kind of politicized narrative that's in. Not everything has to be this macro level discourse of patriarchy. Some of it can actually be endorsed. And I don't know how much space there is online for holding those ideas at the same time. I really don't want relationships, whether they be adult, heterosexual, male-female relationships, or the relationships that we have with our own children, to be packaged up through ideas of suspicion and self-protection that you will lose yourself if you have relationships. Because then, yeah, we are all atomized individuals looking after ourselves, right? And I think online environments can be really toxic for pushing us towards suspicion and catastrophizing and antagonism. We critique all that in the manosphere. I think we might need to critique it in the femisphere as well. This idea that the only thing that men are good for is, I don't know, getting dinner paid for when you go on a date. I don't know. I don't think we want to go down that route.
SPEAKER_01Just building on what you said there about the kind of anti-motherhood or the nihilism content is that from my perspective, having interviewed one woman who I love several times who advocates a lot for awareness around involuntary childlessness, it's very insulting to those women who already feel invisible. There's already the stigma and shame. People don't want to pry into their business when they ask, you know, why haven't you had kids? And no, the normal answer is it didn't work out. And people don't want to pry, but there's already all that shame around that. And I think that kind of content just makes those women feel even more invisible and even more shamed and even more stigmatized. So yeah, another separate podcast, but I try and advocate for those women as much as I can.
SPEAKER_02Well, the idea of stigmatizing wanting to have a child when actually, yeah, people are grappling with grief and loss around children that they wanted that they were never able to have. So, where is the space for that? Around also the idea that you can be voluntarily childless, you can want a different sort of life for yourself. And again, it's about how do we create space for all voices? And what are the implications of some of the narratives that we're putting out there for people that either made a particular choice or actually didn't have any choice? They wanted a life and they weren't able to have it through no fault or control of their own. How can we create narratives where everybody can be heard and seen and not shamed?
SPEAKER_01Let's talk about the article which popularized the Femisphere, which was this article in the New Statesman. It was by Emily Lawford and it had research in it conducted by Scarlett McGuire, another journalist. It was called Meet the Angry Young Women. So in the piece, it found 72% of men had a positive view of women versus only 50% of women who had a positive view of men. So that means by implication, 21% of young women had a negative view versus only 7% of men who had a negative view of women. Even more worryingly, in my opinion, the data found that 60% of young women in the UK said they would find it difficult to date someone who had different, i.e., non-progressive views on an issue like Gaza. For those with a different view on current US President Donald Trump, it was 74%, which is massive. And it sounds like what we spoke about earlier. A lot of young men are going to be masking their own political beliefs from their female partners, certainly ones who are more conservative, which isn't going to go very well long term. So, first of all, what were your feelings when you read the piece? And second of all, if you did happen to see it, there was this video interview that Scarlett Maguire did where she discussed the findings with a new statesman reporter called Anoush Chekalian and the author Emily Lawford. And I found it a bit problematic because there wasn't a lot of alarm. There wasn't a lot of condemnation. They called the findings, quote, surprising and quote, fascinating. Langford even laughed at one point as she described how like a lot of the young women she interviewed had been influenced by online content declaiming against toxic masculinity, jeering about manufactured male victimhood. And at one point she even kind of smiles a little bit. She quotes young women's conviction that like men can be so horrible and you can't trust them. There's a lot to unpack there. So just I'll give you the floor, how you kind of reacted and responded to that piece.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, there is a lot going on for sure. And I think it really speaks to the frames of interpretation that we bring to these ideas. I mean, on the one hand, okay, I'm an academic, right? So I'm always a little bit cautious when data starts getting thrown around.
SPEAKER_01We'll get to that. We'll get to that as well.
SPEAKER_02Methodologies, isn't it? And it's how questions are posed. Because I sometimes think questions can lead to their own answers in a way. And we set the frame of reference in the questions that we ask. But if we kind of put that to the side, right? I think the deeper issue, isn't it, that we're really talking about is that mistrust and the anxiety between men and women in this kind of ideological polarization. I think I'm less sort of concerned with whether like one side is like worse or better than the other, and more about what's happening relationally across society. And definitely if relationships are becoming spaces where people think they have to conceal parts of themselves, and that isn't great. But I'm interested in who gets framed as correct, like who's celebrated and who's pathologized. Because you know, the circles I move within the academic world, which definitely leans towards, dramatically leans towards left-wing progressive political.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, with certain subjects excluding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Definitely, you know, and that I think we can see in data is like very clear. Almost the quote unquote angry young woman is celebrated because her anger is being articulated through progressive left-wing ideas. So that anger is legitimized and seen as kind of like, yes, empowerment, and these women are and justified as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and it's justified because the women are kind of rising up because, yeah, men are awful and they're angry about it. And actually, heterosexual relations are so oppressive and horrendous for women, and they're rejecting it. And aren't they so empowered? And they don't want to be a mum and they don't want this. And so it's celebrated. The angry young man who's listening to, I mean, Andrew Tate. Is probably way outdated, but you know what I mean? Like, yeah, oh well, that angry young man, oh, he's dangerous, he's broken, you know, he gets pathologized, and that to me already brings room for pause, right? Let's pause here. Who do we rush to celebrate? Who do we rush to pathologise? Because that is revealing something about our own framing, right? And I'm not saying, yeah, you know, this is what I mean. These are the circles I move within. So that's where I pause. People may celebrate and pathologize in the completely opposite way. You get a lot of people going, oh, look how terrible the femisphere is, and look how awful these women are, but they'll be a lot more forgiving to the young men. So whichever way you bend, I think we need to pause. If I've spent all these years thinking about how we need to give more room to complexity and meaning making and subjectivity and emotion and all of these ideas that I'm putting forward when it comes to poison young men, then I would encourage us to do the same for girls and young women. You know, girls and young women are navigating a very contested environment. Their emotions are being weaponized, their sense of precarity, their uncertainty about changing kind of social structures and processes are now being weaponized in quite the same way. You know, I don't want to kind of go down to many sort of overly politicized tangents, but why has Gaza become such a focal point for some of this anger? You know, what's happening there? What's going on in Gaza is awful, but what's going on in a lot of parts of the world is awful. Yeah. It's a use of social media dynamics whereby certain ideas, certain examples become so fraught and the kind of hook that we hang our hats on in a way. And a lot of that is very rooted around kind of social media algorithms and how some you know ideas get weaponized.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Why not Ukraine? Why not Sudan?
SPEAKER_02Exactly right. And I think how then are sort of um, you know, the online dynamics feeding into some of what we all get very angry about. So I almost would apply the same lens that I apply with boys and young men. It's I don't want to get into the oppositional us and them kind of framework between young men and young women and whose kind of righteous anger we want to legitimise and who we want to pathologise. I'm interested in how it gets interpreted. And I think what we see is that fear, uncertainty, mistrust, that sense among young people that their futures, their relationships are unstable, and that shared social narrative is almost breaking down, and and how that then leads into these reactionary narratives. I don't want to think, oh, young women are the problem, just like I don't want to think young men are the problem. There's nothing here to celebrate or romanticize. I think it's a sign of a kind of deeper, I guess, relational and cultural fragmentation that should concern us all, really.
SPEAKER_01Everything you said there, I 100% agree with. I think now it's an unfortunate reality, but we've now hopefully reached a consistency where people are hopefully going to be focusing on the issues in the femisphere as much as they are in the manosphere. And also, you know, the work you've done has been incredible. I think it's really interesting about what you said about how, you know, as a woman you've been able to say things that maybe a man wouldn't have been able to. What I hope is with women like Freya, she is able to, in a different way, provide a role that you've been doing for girls. I don't think a man would be able to do that. I don't think he would get very far, to be honest. And maybe that's just the reality of what it is. So I'm hoping that women like Freya can be able to challenge these narratives, and maybe in the academic space, there can be women who can do the work that you've done with girls and young girls as well. And maybe I'll have one of them on the podcast soon. Who knows? What I found interesting is that there was a couple of response pieces to that piece. There were two which were in the New York Times and Revolver, which were about how men have responded to this polarization by dating older women. So one piece was called Older Women Are in Demand by Younger Men, and one piece was called Angry Young Women Are Driving Gen Z Men Straight Into the Arms of Cougars. I don't know if cougars is an outdated term in 2026, but who knows? It's very good news for the uh older, not old, before I get cancelled, women, their love lives, but I don't think it's gonna be very good long term. The piece I want to focus on before we reflect is something I found yesterday, and it actually spoke to me and maybe told me I might be wrong on this. And it was a pleasant surprise as well. I love being pleasantly wrong in a surprising way. It was a piece by a woman called Janice Flamengo. She wrote in a Substack piece, she questioned the data behind the New Statesman piece, right? So she says, for one thing, the survey didn't ask whether women hate men. It asked whether their view of men was positive or negative. So the percentage of women in the survey who claimed to have a quote, very negative view of men was 3%. Another 18% claimed that their view of men was, quote, quite, i.e. less than very negative. So that is 21% of women reporting a negative view. So that means by process of elimination of maths, my very basic maths, nearly four out of five women did not report a negative view. So might there be hope here?
SPEAKER_02Yes. We actually, a little while back, we did the same on a survey that was looking at boys and men, because it was like similar figures. Oh, 20% of boys have like a favorable opinion to agitate. And you're like, well, amazing, 80% don't men. So actually, if we're thinking of social norms and where the tide is turning, actually, maybe people are more nuanced than we give them credit for. And maybe we need to start asking different questions because it's like the idea of the safe uncertainty framework. If we go into these conversations with this, do you have this opinion or that opinion? Are we foreclosing young people's ability to articulate actually some of their more nuanced perspectives about things? Well, yeah, you know, on the one hand, some of my feelings about men are this, but then on the other hand, I'm also feeling that. People normally they call them the extremes for a reason. Most people don't sit on the extremes. They float around somewhere in the middle and they might feel different things at the same time. They might feel different things on different days. Actually, I think we need to be asking questions and having conversations that allow young people to start articulating some of their ambivalence about this stuff, right? So, yeah, I think it's about how do we start asking better questions where we can get to the nuance of some of this. Because I think sometimes, you know, we're looking for a headline, aren't we? Or not we personally, but like, you know, we want that figure that we can throw out there. So we ask questions that will get us in that direction. Whereas if we think, no, actually, I want to get more at the nuance of this issue, then we might be asking different questions to begin with. And that's what I'd be encouraging people to do for sure.
SPEAKER_01What you just said there really brings me back to this scene from iRobot where Will Smith's talking to the dead murder victim, and he puts him in a hologram and he asks him a load of questions. And then when he asks him the one that's like really key, he goes, That detective is the right question. And I'm like, This is what we need to get to.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, what do lawyers say? They say, never ask a question if you don't know the answer you're gonna get. All questions are pre-designed to tell a particular story because with the right questions, you shepherd people into that, right? The foregone conclusion that you already had in mind, the point that you want to prove. And I don't know, I think, yes, when we're lawyers in the courtroom, that makes a lot of sense because we're trying to win, it's adversarial. I think when we're thinking about matters of identity and intimacy and relationality, I think we need to do the complete opposite. Much more open, much more curious.
SPEAKER_01As we reflect on this amazing part two podcast, M, similar question as the first pod we did. What has this part of your mental health journey taught you about yourself?
SPEAKER_02Oh god, yes, big question. Um I think it has taught me that oh goodness, I need to find ways to practice what I preach in terms of becoming more present with myself. Becoming a parent makes you when you have a child, they live completely in the moment. And the moment can either be great and then all of a sudden it goes horribly wrong, and they're like hysterical. It's very one extreme to the other. Your ability to self-regulate in response to that is really heightened. And before becoming a parent, I did a lot of reading around like you read all the baby books, and I wish I hadn't really bothered. But the one thing that I learned from the baby books was that your ability to self-regulate is really key. Because when your baby's kind of screaming blue murder, or you're tired, or you know, like my husband, sometimes you feel rejected from your own child because the only person that can comfort them is the mom and you have to kind of pass them back. There's so much that is getting triggered in you through that process. Your ability to just breathe, sit with yourself, acknowledge how you feel, but then move forward in like a healthy way is really make or break when it comes to being a parent. And like when you're sleep deprived and you're dealing with your relationship with your partner at the same time as you're dealing with your child, so high pressure, so challenging. And every day you are practicing your ability to do that. And it has taught me how hard I find doing that and how fundamentally flawed I am as a human being, how kind of much love you can have for your child, but love does not make you a perfect self-regulated person. I have so much more compassion for my own parents now because I was like, oh yes, flipping how you were like trying your best. And maybe sometimes your best almost traumatized me at certain moments in my life, but it wasn't because you were really awful, it was because you're trying your best to make this happen. So as a parent, I had learned that about myself. And I almost feel like professionally, yes, we all need to self-regulate a little bit. When we, I don't know, read an article like the one you find in the New Statesman, and we're really reacting, and we've got all these opinions and feelings about it. No, okay, maybe let's take a pause, let's breathe first and then react. What's the idea? Respond rather than react. And that is what I am trying every day to do. And like thinking of like the safe uncertainty stuff in the educational space, in order to enact a safe uncertainty response, requires you pausing first and holding that space before rushing in. And so I think that's what I'm learning about myself. And as much as I am trying to encourage this in the world around me, I am realizing that yes, I am part of that with you all. What I'm saying I think we should all be doing is not something that I'm necessarily getting right all of the time. We can all be part of this, we can all identify our own biases, our own imperfections, all of the stuff that we've got going on in all of this is not about being perfect human beings. It's about becoming more aware. When you are very sure of something, like, I know what I think, I know how to interpret this, I know why girls and women are having all of these problems. I know why boys and men are having all of these problems. That to me is your clue. Okay, let's pause a little bit. Let's just be a little bit more humble. That's where I'm sort of headed. But ask me in another few years and I'll probably give you another answer. But this is where I'm at right now, for sure. That epistemic humbleness. Humility, that's it. That's the word. Epistemic humility. That's where I'm at right now, for sure.
SPEAKER_01That is a fantastic way to end. And I always try and read a book every now and then, which is like this, which is like, you don't know anything actually. And then I go, Oh, I don't know anything actually. And I then I reset and go again. Emily, it has been an absolute pleasure and a privilege. Good luck with being a mum, good luck with all of the work you're doing in the men's space. If there's anything I can do to support, connect, help you with, please let me know. Always happy to help you because you're one of the great ones, you and Rich and Sophie and everyone else who's doing amazing work. So thank you for coming back on the Just Checking In podcast and talking to me, pal.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's all we've got time for on this episode of the Just Checking In pod. A big thank you to Emily for being my special guest and for letting me check back in with her. I'll put some links where you can find out more about all the incredible work Emily is doing and follow her on social media in the show notes. As always, thank you to all the vendors who've tuned into this episode. Remember, if you've liked what you've heard, please give it a share on social media. Tell your friends, family, or work colleagues about us. If you're feeling generous, write us a review and give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to support us further, go to patreon.com slash venthelpuk or make a one-off donation to our PayPal. All of those links are on our link tree. That's linktr.ee slash vent helpuk. We hope to check in with you again very soon. And remember guys, it is always okay to venture.
