 Hey guys, Maryleigh Johnson here with the 21 convention. We're here with James Marshall. You just had your 2014 speech. Yes, I did. And I hate that I loved it so much, because I really wish I could go. You know what, that stuff doesn't interest me. But I was like, yeah, that's super duper interesting. And they'll get to see your speech. You guys will get to see his speech in just a little bit. We recommend watching the whole thing. And I wanted to ask, what happens when feminine and masculine become institutionalized instead of just individualized? Well, the main thing that happens is that you don't have a choice about it. So I think the biggest message of this convention is always about personal choice, about choosing your own path. And so my speech was really looking at institutionalized masculine and feminine and how that can really detrimental to both sexes, because it doesn't allow for the full spectrum of what it means to be a man and a woman. So how do you choose your masculine archetype if you want one and you want to live up to something? Yeah, it's not easy, because in many modern societies, men don't have a clear idea of what it is to be masculine outside of, let's say, consumer capitalist culture, because particularly young guys are being fed ideas all the time of what it means to be a man, but that's in order to sell stuff. So it's like, you're a loser, get this watch, you'll be a man. You're a loser, wear this suit, you'll be a man. In the same way that women are told, you're ugly, get this, and then you'll be pretty. And so there's these messages from mass media and corporations that are trying to sell you concepts of masculinity. So I think it's important first to unplug from other people's agendas about what you have to be. And to always be questioning, well, who benefits from that? And do you benefit from it, or is it the company that's selling you the watch? So outside of that, I think the process of looking at your masculine archetype is, yeah, you can model aspects of masculinity, look at people who are successful, but again, look below the surface. Is someone really successful in the sense that they're happy and at ease with themselves, or do they just have all the bling of success? So and the other thing is, I guess you need to, if you're in a situation where your peer group or your society or your cultural group doesn't support you being able to go out and choose your own identity, then you're going to probably have to choose a new peer group. And I think that's one of the major things that holds many people back, is that their peer group says, now, that's not cool, or that's gay, or only you shouldn't be doing this kind of activity or whatever else. And I went through that a lot of process in my life where I had to move sometimes countries or cities to be with communities of people who supported my growth, because you do tend to resonate and operate at the same level as the people that you spend most of your time with. So I guess be careful about choosing your friends. And it doesn't mean you have to cut them out of your life, but it means that if you want to experiment with something that's other than the status quo of being a tough guy who plays football or whatever the very basic ideology of masculinity is, then you need to seek out a like-minded community. So in your speech, you were talking about feminism. And it was odd, because pretty much the only exposure that I've had in this realm with feminism is always a negative. It's always, it's a taboo word. The feminazi comes into it a lot. And so it's kind of a blame game. And I didn't even realize consciously that that was going on until you mentioned that. Can you elaborate on it? Yeah. I mean, I chose to speak about feminism, not just feminism, but this a lot at a men's conference, because I wanted to draw into a public sphere from a man's perspective how this can be detrimental to a man if you perceive that a woman standing up for herself or for her rights is actually necessarily a zero-sum game. Because that's the general idea, is that if the feminists have control, then men lose control. And it's not about that. Feminism has always been about sexual equality. And the term has been kind of hijacked and used now as an insult and as a label so that most women are really scared about being called that. But any woman who perceives that she should be able to have rights, she should be able to be safe, she should be able to choose about what she does with her body, by definition, more or less, is a feminist. And so yeah, this was a difficult decision and not an easy speech for me to prepare for, but I thought it was really important to speak to men about this because perhaps they'll listen to me when they probably want it to a woman. And that was a great point. I love how you kind of said that being a powerful woman doesn't mean that it's going to demasculate the man, that you can love a powerful woman and that's going to be great for the man. Yeah. I mean, a powerful woman will call you out on your shit and she'll keep testing you, which is good, I think, because otherwise you become complacent. I mean, if you want a very, I don't know, mediocre woman who doesn't expect anything out of a man, well, then you're just going to operate at that level or you're going to get very bored. For me personally, I like being around women who challenge me preferably are smarter than me because that always inspires me to be better. And I'm not doing it to please her. I'm doing it because if I want to be with a very special woman, then I need to be able to radiate and resonate on the same level of power and of energy. And so because I think the need to dominate a woman is really about fear because if you feel like she had some control or some power that then you would be lost, well, then that's a personal issue. And that's, I think, the main reason why institutionalized violence or suppression of women happens all around the world and some places very extreme and others more kind of subtle because men are afraid of a woman who's not being controlled because it means you actually do have to man up. Man up not in an aggressive way, but man up in that I have to be more to match her. I can't say enough how much I really liked your speech and you're all over the place. So if I want to find you and I want to say I want to take one of your conferences, I want to read one of your blogs, where do I go? Yeah, so I travel most of the year. I spend quite a lot of time in Europe, USA and Australia. I run workshops all around the world, but mostly in Europe these days. So I do long-term residential and touring workshops. I like to spend a good chunk of time with people seven to 10 days. So if you want to find me, the best place is at thenaturallifestyles.com. And people often can't understand my Australian accent, the T-H-E natural lifestyles. They're like the natural lifestyles.com. And we have all our courses and blogs and everything there if you want to get in contact with us. Yeah, but otherwise, I mean, I'll probably be in your city at some point. I'm always wandering around the world. I do 12 countries a year, so yeah. That's been really good talking to you. And this has been James Marshall from the 21 convention. Thank you.