BONUS: Is There Still Good Will Toward Men? A Conversation with Author Jack Kammer

A lot of men feel like they’re walking on eggshells around women and a lot of women feel like they’re carrying too much. So what happens when we stop scoring points and ask the question: Is there still goodwill toward men?

In this BONUS episode, you'll hear my conversation with author Jack Kammer whose book Good Will Toward Men: 1994/2025 — Women Talk Candidly About the Balance of Power Between the Sexes began as interviews with 22 highly educated women and then got revisited decades later with new reflections for 2025. 

Jack and I explore themes like the balance of power between men and women, the cultural narratives about masculinity, and whether genuine goodwill and mutual understanding between the sexes is even possible in today’s climate.

If you want smarter conversations about men’s issues, relationships, and healthy masculinity without turning it into a war, check out the Is There Still Good Will Toward Men? A Conversation with Author Jack Kammer, bonus episode.

Links:

Jack's website (multiple retailers for the book)

Amazon

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

Bill Simpson 0:12

Hi, and welcome to the Men on the Path to Love podcast. Onus episode, Is There Still Good Will Toward Men? A conversation with author Jack Campbell. Jack is the author of the book Goodwill Toward Men, 1994 and 2025. Women talk candidly about the balance of power between the sexes. It's a topic many men are thinking about, but not always talking about openly. And what makes this book fascinating is that Jack originally published it more than 30 years ago after interviewing 22 highly educated and accomplished women about their honest views on men, feminism, power, and the evolving dynamics between the sexes. Jack was a guest on this podcast last year before he revisited those conversations decades later, and the questions raised feel just as relevant today. In this episode, Jack and I explore those themes like the balance of power between men and women, the cultural narratives about masculinity, and whether genuine goodwill and mutual understanding between the sexes is even possible in today's climate. It's a thoughtful, candid discussion that I think many of you will find both challenging and encouraging. I know I sure did. So stick around. You just might learn something. It's the Men on the Path to Love podcast.

Bill Simpson 1:40

Welcome, Jack, once again to Men on the Path to Love.

Jack Kammer 1:44

Well, thank you, Bill. I am very glad to be here on Men on the Path to Love, and also to be a man on the Path to Even Deeper Love with his lovely wife.

Bill Simpson 1:56

Oh, that's a beautiful thing. Well, Jack, let's go back to 1994, and you decided to write this book, Goodwill Toward Men. What inspired you to do that back then?

Jack Kammer 2:10

Well, what inspired me to write the book was what inspired me to get interested in what's going on with men in the first place. The active uh involvement goes back to 1983. Since then, I was able to retrace other incidents in my life all the way back to my childhood. But what's what sparked the book was uh the same thing that came up for me in 1983. It just became clear, or at least it seemed clear to me, that the male point of view was just not really very well understood. And it was really important to hear from women who did have a better understanding of men and appreciation of men than was generally available in the culture, especially in the media.

When A Publisher Turns On You

Bill Simpson 3:04

Right.

Jack Kammer 3:05

There seemed to be a lot of bad will toward men. I had hoped that the book would help increase goodwill toward men, but uh I don't know, I don't think I mentioned it very much in the book, but my book was basically canceled before canceling was a thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the staff at uh St. Martin's Press decided they didn't like my book and they were not gonna help sell it or promote it.

Bill Simpson 3:30

And those were women.

Jack Kammer 3:31

Yeah, I think they were probably all women, at least the ones I heard uh negative things from were all women.

Bill Simpson 3:37

Right.

Jack Kammer 3:38

Which sort of flies in the face of the idea that uh, you know, men have all the power. Um because you know, the many of the big executives at the publishing firms back then were men. Now it's much a more of a female field. Uh but yeah, the the women who who were at very much staff level said, we're not we're not gonna promote this. We don't like this book. You know, sort of bad will toward men, basically.

What Changed In The 2025 Update

Bill Simpson 4:07

Right away, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then you you decided to revise this book in 2025. I'm just curious, you know, as you I would assume reread those interviews 30 years later. I'm just curious what struck you the most, you know, now versus then with those women.

Jack Kammer 4:26

What I added to the book uh in the 2025 version was a new introduction and three appendices. Did you get a chance to read the the appendices?

Bill Simpson 4:37

Yes, I did. Yeah.

Jack Kammer 4:39

Okay. And basically, from 1983 to today, I've been very actively involved in male gender issues. And I don't think much has happened in a positive way for men in anything near the positive way things have changed for women. And I wanted to call attention to that fact that there seems to me to be more bad will toward men today than there was when I wrote the book Goodwill Toward Men, hoping to increase goodwill toward men. And I wanted to take a shot at trying to explain in 2025 what is going on that there is so much bad will toward men. Yeah. And I, you know, I made a case for it in the appendices. And I would love to hear from you very quickly about what you think of the case I made about what was going on or what is going on among many women, not all women, but among many women, to create an atmosphere of men just sort of feeling like they're in their foxholes and they got to keep their head down and they got to just shut up and they can't say anything. And it's uh it's war for many men. They feel so beleaguered, so belittled, so unappreciated, so blamed for everything that goes on at a macro level. And that's a big difference between you and me.

Jack Kammer 6:12

You work at the clinical level with individual men. I work at the macro level, and I look at what's going on across the political uh fabric of our country, and I see I see heavy concentrations of bad will toward men, primarily among well-funded organizations that get a lot of money from philanthropies that still believe that the most progressive thing in America today is helping women overcome their quote-unquote oppression. When I believe that the most progressive movement in America today is the need or the incipient effort to do for men what we have done for women in terms of opening up options for how we get to live our lives.

Bill Simpson 7:36

And then you have the more right conservative side pushing harder to present us as the old traditional conditioning male.

Me Too And Public Anger At Men

Jack Kammer 7:44

Yeah, and so we got polarization, and neither side is really doing a very good job of being honest, telling the truth, having any nuance, uh, and it's you know black and white and good and bad, and it's not very helpful. Now, now you mentioned the Me Too movement. The Me Too movement was very largely involved in creating bad will toward men. Um because Harvey Weinstein, um, yeah, Epstein, those guys were bad.

Bill Simpson 8:17

Yeah, rightly so. Yeah.

Jack Kammer 8:19

But they are not every man. And of course, women will say, yeah, but it's always a man. It's not every man, but it's always a man. Um the Me Too movement showed a lot of rancor towards men. And I think that it really that movement really pales in comparison to what I think is the most distorted, most destructive, most unscientific, most wrong, most ideologically bent against men. And that is the whole idea of violence against women, men's violence against women, um, domestic violence against women. The federal government spends something like a billion dollars a year, a billion with a B, a billion dollars a year on violence against women. When science shows, and and Suzanne Steinmetz in the book, the interview in the book, made it very clear that the science does not show that domestic violence is the equivalent of men beating women, that it goes both ways.

Bill Simpson 9:33

Exactly. Yeah.

Jack Kammer 9:35

And one of the one of the very interesting facts that I don't think we mentioned in the book, but which has subsequently been found to be true, is that domestic violence is is said to be by the ideological uh feminists who have a lot of good jobs in the domestic violence industry. Organization after organization after organization, funded by philanthropy after philanthropy after philanthropy. Uh, you know, these women are making pretty good money, and they're raising money through fear and outrage. Um the thing that's not mentioned in the discussion about the patriarchy and how domestic violence is an effort by men to continue their control and oppression of women is sort of demonstrated to be uh hardly true when you look at the fact that domestic violence between lesbians, women against women, is the highest category of all.

Bill Simpson 10:38

Wow.

Jack Kammer 10:39

That does not comport with the ideological bias on which the fundraising is done that domestic violence has to stop because it's just a continuation and another variation of men's oppression of women. It's just not true.

Bill Simpson 10:56

Not true. Yeah, and and I've been in that situation myself, and and it's being on the other end of that in a domestic violence situation. And I think for men, and a lot of the women mentioned this in the book, that we as men are afraid to admit that that has happened. So we don't come forth. And so and and you know, women too to a certain degree, but most men, it's too much of a crush to our ego to have to admit that a woman was committing violence towards us.

Jack Kammer 11:26

Yeah, and could we use a word other than ego there, Bill? Because you know, the whole idea of the male ego.

Bill Simpson 11:34

I just threw that in, but yeah.

Jack Kammer 11:35

Well, what what could we call it? What could we call it besides male ego? Isn't it just the male male integrity, male?

Bill Simpson 11:42

Well, I mean, uh if you look at ego, it it's that male ego, but it's just ego in general. You know, it's that outwardly part of us that we don't want to reveal what's really inside. So whatever that mechanism is that's protecting us from revealing what's real, and then add the social conditioning on top of that, then that's where you get the stereotype of the quote unquote male ego.

Why Some Women Show Goodwill

Jack Kammer 12:08

Yeah.

Bill Simpson 12:08

But what I appreciated about the interviews and uh a kind of a thread that I saw through it, was that here are these highly educated women, prominent in their fields, and I just found it encouraging that these women they really expressed genuine goodwill toward men, and were able to deflect some of the radical uh feminist views, and we're really open to, yeah, let's work this out. There is a lot of goodwill towards men. They gave us that goodwill in those interviews. What do you think allowed them to do that in being interviewed by a man?

Jack Kammer 12:50

Well, I think that there are probably many, many, many, many, many, many women who feel goodwill toward men.

Bill Simpson 12:58

Yeah, sure.

Jack Kammer 12:59

But sort of the cool girls in the in the school, the the mean girls in the school, the clique of powerful and influential girls in the sisterhood.

Bill Simpson 13:11

And their egos, okay, yes, yes, really.

Jack Kammer 13:15

Isn't that the truth? We don't talk about the female ego very much. Um, yeah. My hope for the book was that it was going to sort of be uh a new version of, you know, the empress is wearing no clothes. And to encourage many women to say, yeah, you know, I read this book and it's really true. And come on, ladies, let's get off of this beaten up on men thing. Right. There's a lot of good things about men that really deserve to be recognized and appreciated. And let's just try to be empathic about what it's like being a man these days and how the how men are being browbeaten and trashed right and left. Let's let's not let the small minority of women who are making tons of money as professional feminists and having tremendous influence over our politics and over our media control the public discourse about our men. Let's stop this. And well, the very small number of women at uh St. Martin's Press who decided they didn't like my book were very influential in making sure that my hope for the book, my dream for the book, uh had any chance of being realized.

Implicit Bias And Minority Men

Bill Simpson 14:33

Yeah, it's such a shame. I I mean it's just it seems so unfair. And then they're like, oh, poor baby, you've been unfair to us all this time, you know, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, there was there was a question that you asked, it was a very powerful question that I made note of. And you asked the question, why do we interpret men's difficulties as evidence of inferiority rather than as burdens we've carried?

Jack Kammer 15:00

That's in I think the new introduction. Um, and I mentioned that in the context of recent research. Uh I only know of one study that showed this. I don't know of any studies that showed to the contrary. But the largest implicit bias of all, it's not against women, it's not even against ethnic minorities, it's against men. The largest negative implicit bias of all is against men.

Bill Simpson 15:30

I'd have to agree with that. Yeah.

Jack Kammer 15:32

Now, my heart immediately goes to the men who are both men and black men. Because there is implicit bias against men and blacks, and who gets the double the double dose, the double whammy? Black men and Native American men.

Bill Simpson 15:52

Sure.

Jack Kammer 15:53

Men on the reservation are, you know, they're not exactly live and large.

Bill Simpson 15:57

Well, it's minority men in general, I would say, you know. Yeah, yes, Latinos as well, you know.

Jack Kammer 16:02

Yes, I think that's true. Um, of course, the burden that white men have is everybody thinks, well, he's a white male, and so he must be, you know, of the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. You know, which he got to complain about. Well, you know, not every white male is a member of the Fortune 500 uh club, and I like to talk about how we really need to be talking about the misfortune five million.

Bill Simpson 16:34

Yeah, no doubt.

The Provider Trap And Respect

Jack Kammer 16:35

And we don't. And we don't. So why do we have this tendency to see that men's job sort of inevitably gets us into situations where violence is more likely to occur than it is, say, in a daycare center or in a nice office? Um, you know, men are competing, they have to compete. Our job is to provide. What does provide mean? Well, it means, as a practical matter, you try to gather up as many scarce resources as you can. And what that means is you're going to be competing in some very strenuous ways with other men who were trying to do exactly the same thing.

Bill Simpson 17:20

Right.

Jack Kammer 17:21

Why? Because of because that's how we get our props in life. We get our pride in life by how well, largely how well we fulfill the provider role.

Bill Simpson 17:34

Yeah, and I I recently did a an episode on that about being the provider just isn't enough anymore. And one of the women in the in the book was saying how women have more of an advantage there in terms of options. Our main goal as we've been conditioned is to be the provider, as you're saying. And she was saying that, well, women are more like they get to go have babies and be the mother and the nurturer and the you know, live that domestic piece, as well as being in the in the provider role. What are your thoughts around that?

Jack Kammer 18:12

Well, I think that that points exactly to what I was trying to say in the appendices of the book. The bottom line for me is that the only way we are going to improve relationships between men and women, and one of the ways we are going to be able to alleviate a lot of the stresses that our children are growing up with, especially our boys, is to make sure that men have as many options for how they live their lives as women have. Back in the 1940s, during the during World War II, we had the image of Rosie the Riveter. She's a beloved character because she made the point that women were capable of much more than the standard uh cultural uh image of woman uh portrayed. Women could do other things. Many women love the idea of Rosie the Riveter. It was a very suboptimal thing to have women's talents wasted. Um and I'm talking about the talents of women who really didn't feel like they wanted to be raising kids.

Bill Simpson 19:33

Right.

Charles The Childraiser And New Options

Jack Kammer 19:33

But if if they said, I don't really want to raise kids, I want to be a lawyer, they can be subjected to some pretty bad criticism. What you you are not you are not wishing to fulfill your natural role as a mother, you don't have a mothering instinct. What's wrong with you? Well, it's a good thing that we confronted that, and we realized that it wasn't the woman who had something wrong with her, it was our expectations of women that had something wrong with it. Well, I propose this idea of Rosie the Riveter's counterpart, and I call him Charles the Childraiser, I think is what I called him. And we are doing the mirror image of the bad thing we did to women. We waste a lot of male talent by telling men, regardless of who they are, what their psychological or emotional makeup is, that your job, the way for you to get respect and to be regarded as a valuable citizen, is to get out there and make as much money as you can. Well, you know, there are a lot of men who are really wonderful people who are just no good at making money.

Bill Simpson 20:55

Yeah.

Jack Kammer 20:56

Especially in a corporate setting where it's so full of politics and insincerity and backstabbing and maneuvering and phoniness that to tell men that you got to go in there and live that life, that's how you demonstrate how wonderful you are, I think that creates problems that you end up seeing at the clinical level.

Bill Simpson 21:21

Absolutely. Uh, the pressure to be in that role and and to provide. And and I think about my own journey of being a single dad uh at one point in my life. And I was able to balance the two. You know, I had an interesting job. It was a radio job that gave me some flexibility and a really good salary to get support. But I enjoyed being with with my daughter and being that single dad. Yeah, it was stressful, a lot of stuff and I had to learn. Uh it's what got me into therapy because I wanted to be a good dad. Um, but you don't see a lot of guys aspiring to do that. To me, it was. Kind of out of necessity and my own personal growth. And some men, you know, yes, I I live in a pretty liberal area here in Philadelphia, and you see men carrying the babies in the little pouches, and you know, there's a lot of that here. Uh but more on the grand scheme of things, it's not a whole lot of men are aspiring to do that. They may want to on the inside, but they wouldn't dare project it outwardly.

Jack Kammer 22:24

Yes. And you you're pointing to a very interesting nuance to this problem. Um the bottom line of my thesis about why there is more bad will toward men today than there was in the past is because there is this groundswell of men who are saying to themselves and sort of whispering to each other, um, some more openly than others, some men proudly doing it, of being the primary parent and doing it really well. And when you talk to fellas who are full-time dads, many of them will say that the biggest trick for them to pull this off and make it successful and happy for them was that they had to say to the mother, I parent differently.

Bill Simpson 23:20

That's okay.

Jack Kammer 23:20

Exactly. Yeah exactly. I parent differently.

Bill Simpson 23:24

It's a different way of doing it. Yeah.

Jack Kammer 23:26

A different way of doing it. And it's been it's been very beneficial in a lot of ways.

Bill Simpson 23:31

I just thought about I'm a facilitator on this website called men'sgroup.com. And I see that frequently with the men that are there, and they're not these uh, you know, new age guys, you know, sensitive new age guys, or however you want to say it, or liberal guys. They're just regular Joes and they love being with their kids. They love being the parent, you know. Yes. And so to your point, I see that in my practice too.

Stereotypes That Keep Dads Out

Jack Kammer 23:56

And so, how is this connected to the to the increase that I believe has occurred and is still occurring in bad will toward men? I think the reason is very much like all of the negative stereotyping we had about women after World War II, right? How did we get Rosie the Riveter to get go back home? Let men have their jobs back. Well, we did it by trashing women. Women aren't smart, they aren't tough, they aren't capable, they can't do math, they just they cry too much, they can't make tough decisions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Stereotype upon stereotype upon stereotype to try to keep women disfavored in men's traditional domain. What's happening today? What we're talking about is women's traditional domain being that they have the option now to stay in that traditional domain of being the mother, if that's what they want to be full-time.

Bill Simpson 25:00

Right.

Jack Kammer 25:01

Or they have the option and they have multiple variations of the option to also have a job in which they get to make money. Well, if you love having those options, if it is very much a part of your female ego that you're the mother, you're the nurturer, and women create life, which is not true. A sperm without an egg without a sperm is like a sperm without an egg.

Bill Simpson 25:30

Yeah.

Jack Kammer 25:31

It doesn't amount to much.

Bill Simpson 25:32

It takes two.

Jack Kammer 25:33

It's it's the sperm and the egg getting together that creates the life. Right. The woman incubates the life, carries the life, delivers the life. And we need to be thankful that they are willing to do that, but they don't create life. They deliver life, and that's a very different thing. And men every bit as much, maybe even more in some ways, because we we create bazillions of sperm uh compared to the number of eggs a woman carries. We're creating life in a different way. Right. So the reason I think there is more bad will toward men today than in the past is because women have to do to men what we did to women. To keep women out of the male domain, we had to trash women with stupid stereotypes to keep men out of the female domain with all of these guys that you're talking about who love being with their kids. Yeah, we have to keep them away. How do we do that? Well, we talk about me too. They're sexual abusers, they can't be trusted. Don't let a kid be with a man because he's violent, he's a sexual pervert.

Bill Simpson 26:47

Right, right, right.

Jack Kammer 26:48

Um, but as I mentioned earlier, the worst stereotype is men's violence against women. Because that comes up very often in an untrue way with false allegations of men as domestic violence perpetrators.

Bill Simpson 27:08

Yeah, and that whole tricky thing with false accusations of rape and all that. I mean, that's so complicated. Uh yes. Yeah.

Jack Kammer 27:16

And when your ability to be the primary parent is on the line, you're the mother, and you're the primary parent, you got this guy who's saying no, he wants to be equal to you as a parent, and your marriage falls apart. Yeah, maybe when you were all in love as newly wedged, you talked about 50-50 parenting and and uh sharing the roles. But when you're done with him, you don't want to share with him, you don't want to be stuck living in the same town as him. You want to maybe move to Indiana where you got a job. How do you get to do that? Well, you convince the judge this guy is a really bad person, and the kids are afraid of him.

Bill Simpson 28:00

Yeah, and the mother's influence, you know, in judging the ex-husband and in front of the kids and all that. I hear that a lot in my practice. And I I also see a lot of men staying in an unhealthy relationship so they don't have to go through that, so they can be with their kids. And that was even mentioned in your in your book as well.

Jack Kammer 28:20

Yes, yes, and so we need to do for men what we have done for women. We take a look at these stereotypes and say, men are perfect, true. And there are men who commit sexual harassment, of course, true. There are men who commit violence, true. However, you are slightly exaggerating this to maintain for yourself your advantages and at the same time allow yourself to pretend to be interested in equality between the sexes, because you're milking that for all it's worth when it's you who is the victim of the gender stereotype.

Bill Simpson 29:04

Yeah. You know, I'm thinking about the man listening who really values women, a feminist in his own way, and all about equality and all that. Um, but he feels dismissed, especially now with the Me Too, even more alert with oh my god, I can't say anything and being afraid, walking on eggshells and or afraid of being demonized. What would you say to those guys that are hearing that?

Jack Kammer 29:32

I would say that we're not going to be able to do it alone. We have to have alliances with women. We need to have women of goodwill toward men stand up and say to their girlfriends, let's look at what we're doing here. This is not right. Yeah, there's a sisterhood, and we love having girls' night out where we get to talk about how soup silly and stupid and dumb and clueless men are. You know, and that's kind of fun in a way. And whenever there's a disagreement between you and your husband, you know I'm gonna take your side sister, girlfriend, and I'm gonna say, Oh, it was must have been really hard for you to kick him out of the kids' lives, you know.

Bill Simpson 30:23

Yeah, right.

Jack Kammer 30:25

The sisterhood is powerful, and it can be powerfully destructive.

Bill Simpson 30:31

Do you think it can be possible for men to advocate without being anti-women, like you know, reversing that? Can we find that middle ground like these women did in your book? You know, they found that middle ground to be able to say, hey, let's let's come together here, let's work this out.

Jack Kammer 30:48

Yes, and I do think it's possible, and it's going to require men to say things like this look, I love you, you're important to me, I think you're great, but and and you're not perfect. Can you admit you're not perfect?

Bill Simpson 31:06

And that goes both ways.

Jack Kammer 31:07

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. There's no doubt that men are imperfect. Talking about male foibles requires no courage at all in 2026.

Bill Simpson 31:22

And it's easy to point fingers and blame. I mean, that's an easy way up.

Jack Kammer 31:25

Yeah, it's much more difficult for a man to say, you know, women do bad things too. Oh, yeah. Well, name one thing that we do, yeah, and then you name one thing that women generally do. Well, you are a misogynist.

Bill Simpson 31:42

Right. It's so it's it's dangerous territory.

Jack Kammer 31:45

If you gotta be open-minded on both sides, then and the side that is most closed right now is the sisterhood having a field day with the advantages it gets with pretending men are stupid, clueless, ignorant, bad, dismissible. We don't even really need them for the future.

Bill Simpson 32:10

And and and I've heard guys say a lot of things about women too in these men's groups.

Jack Kammer 32:15

There's no doubt about that. What there's doubt about is whether men are even needed.

Bill Simpson 32:20

Yeah.

Jack Kammer 32:21

There are people writing books about that.

Bill Simpson 32:23

Yeah. Well, there was one woman that said they were talking about how all men are rapists.

Jack Kammer 32:29

Yeah.

Bill Simpson 32:30

You know, it's just absurd. You know, that's just another example of the extreme.

Jack Kammer 32:35

Well, that's yes, that's an example of how women can say outrageously horrible things about men. And that's considered sisterhood and feminism and empowerment. But if a man dares to say something like, you know, sometimes women, you know, they have these whispering campaigns where they can completely trash a man just by whispering about him.

Bill Simpson 32:58

Yeah.

Jack Kammer 32:59

Oh, that's such misogyny. And this part needs to be emphasized. Most women love their husbands. Sure. I think it's probably true. Would you would you think that's true? Absolutely. Yet the sisterhood makes it uncool to stand up for your man when the girls want to have a good laugh about how stupid men are.

Bill Simpson 33:26

Yeah. Yeah.

Jack Kammer 33:28

It's a fashion, it's uh, it's a trend, uh, it's a very fun and attractive fad.

Bill Simpson 33:35

And you you can get the joke, but enough's enough. You know, like where's the other side? Where's the reinforcement? Um yes.

Jack Kammer 33:43

And in a way, and uh, one of the ways we can appeal to women to come on, knock it off. Uh stand up to your lady friends and say, ladies, we gotta stop this. This is wrong, is by looking at your sons. What is this doing to your boys?

Bill Simpson 34:02

Exactly.

Jack Kammer 34:03

For them to feel so inferior compared to to girls. Girls rule, boys drool is a t-shirt that girls can wear at the school.

Bill Simpson 34:15

Yeah, yeah.

Jack Kammer 34:16

And nobody says anything about that.

Bill Simpson 34:18

Yeah, that's empowerment. Yeah, I know. And I wish that we could just be open and vulnerable and be real instead of having all this old subconscious conditioning just getting in the way of coming together. And I know that sounds very idealistic, and it's we got a long way to go before we even get close to that. Um, and I I just want to say how much this book helped me in terms of what I do in relationship coaching and hearing all these different women find that middle ground to where they were showing appreciation, were showing goodwill toward men. And that opened my eyes when I'm speaking with my female clients and they're talking about their spouse or partner. It's like, hey, let's give him some grace here. These a re years and millennia of conditioning that we're trying to release here. And it's not gonna happen overnight. You know, give him a chance to try, give him a chance to love the way he loves and try to find some middle ground in there.

Bill Simpson 35:26

That was really helpful for me to hear all these different women's opinions uh because I don't always get that in my work. You know, I get all the negative stuff, and to hear women actually praising men and appreciating men and and showing goodwill toward men uh was again very encouraging uh for me. And you know, Jack, I'm thinking at the end of the day, you know, uh you've kind of answered this already, but I want to ask you again more specifically, what does goodwill towards men look like in terms of relationship, in terms of family and our society in general?

Jack Kammer 36:05

Easing up on narrow expectations of men. Recognizing that men are as different and as varied and as and as human as women are.

Bill Simpson 36:17

Yeah.

Jack Kammer 36:18

We have changed our expectations of women, and women are better off for it. Now, it is true that there are still a lot of women who are suffering very deep psychological stress over having to do it all.

Bill Simpson 36:35

Yeah, I hear it every day in my work with the women that uh you know they're trying to do it all themselves and they're not getting any support.

Jack Kammer 36:43

It's no doubt true. To do the same thing for men would sort of establish the fact, you know, you don't have to do it all because I'm here wanting to do half of it.

Bill Simpson 37:00

The women I've talked to, they would love to have that attitude, but uh unfortunately they can't do it. It's like them trying to get their their men to to support and and be there and they're absent, not not even trying. It's one thing to want to, and the woman is saying, No, I got this, I'm gonna take care of these kids and blah blah, you know, and and take ownership of that, versus they're struggling financially, emotionally, needing that additional support, needing the father figure in their lives. You know, these are single women that I'm talking about that that the men are absent. That's a different story.

Jack Kammer 37:39

Well, yes. And the idea of men being absent raises in our minds the idea of the irresponsible father.

Bill Simpson 37:48

Right.

Jack Kammer 37:49

In in my work as a parole and probation agent, um, working for the National Fatherhood Initiative, I am very clear about the need to recognize that many fathers are absent not because they wanted to leave, but because they were escorted to the door.

Bill Simpson 38:10

Yeah. And that's a different story, too. I mean, you know, it's complicated. Uh it is complicated.

Jack Kammer 38:16

And and we talk about one side of the complication, right? We don't talk about the other side of the complication that could be the key to resolving the side that we are beating our heads about.

Bill Simpson 38:30

Sure. And it's not not necessarily that some of them are being irresponsible, it's the position that they've that they're in, that there's no way out. Or if they feel that there's no way out.

Jack Kammer 38:42

And and there are also women who don't want a way out.

Bill Simpson 38:46

Well, of course. Yeah, that's the other side of the thing. Because there can be another side. Yeah.

Father Absence And Money Pressure

Jack Kammer 38:49

Yes. Those women who do not have fabulous careers, who might have bad educations, bad opportunities in life, lower on the socioeconomic scale, right, they tend to be in the same milieu as men on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. And when you are a man who is in the same neighborhood or in the same community as a woman whose primary identity, primary source of pride and female ego is to be the mother. What do we want from you? Where's the money? Don't be talking to me about chump change. Where's the money? And what does that do to men who are very often breaking the law, largely in jail, hurting people, shooting people, dealing drugs? We could do a a lot of good for helping those men who have a lot of heart and care and love for their children, have opportunities other than making money to demonstrate their love for their children. And I heard that all the time when I was a parole and probation agent in central Baltimore, which is a very beleaguered city.

Bill Simpson 40:14

Yeah. Charm city, right?

Jack Kammer 40:16

Charm city.

Bill Simpson 40:17

Another thing I really appreciated about the book is that you really went after some hard issues, like you were just talking about rape, domestic violence, you know, addiction, uh, all those things that you're referencing, and no holds barred. I mean, you really covered a lot of really serious topics. Um, this was no fluff. I mean, this was real. Uh, I really got that sense.

A Real Man Rejects Definitions

Jack Kammer 40:40

I often think, how much better would life be for everybody if we changed what we expect of our men? And rewrote the male job description to include things like being sweet, kind, patient, loving, fun with kids. What is masculinity? Well, I am resolutely against trying to establish a rigid definition of masculinity.

Bill Simpson 41:13

I love your definition, by the way, that we talked about last time. I want to hear it again. It deserves to be heard again. I love it.

Jack Kammer 41:20

Okay, oh, okay. So uh my definition of a real man?

Bill Simpson 41:24

Yes.

Jack Kammer 41:25

It's a man who does not care at all about anybody else's definition of a real man.

Bill Simpson 41:31

Yeah, I love that. Perfect.

Jack Kammer 41:33

All right, good. Yeah. Um, suppose we were to grant that idea of being a real man. Imagine if men at the bottom of the lowest rungs of our society didn't have to obsess about I don't have any money, and that's the only thing I am going to be loved for, because the women around here don't have any money either, and they need some. And so I'm going to be valued for how much money I can provide.

Bill Simpson 42:02

Exactly.

Jack Kammer 42:02

And that's exclusively it. She doesn't care about my love because she's the one who does the loving. She needs me to be out there kicking butt, taking names, and bringing home money. If men were relieved of that obligation and could have a healthy ego, could have a healthy sense of themselves, have pride in themselves, feel integrity, feel like they're really important people in their community, in their families, to their partners, to their children. The most important thing for you to do, Joe, is to be a good guy.

Bill Simpson 42:38

There you go.

Jack Kammer 42:39

And you know what being a good guy is. It's not how bad you are, it's not how many people you can beat up, it's not how many drugs you can sell, it's not about bringing home money. Yes, we do want you to be a provider, but there is something else besides money that we don't have enough of. Yeah, and that's love. Love, and you can provide that. And I'm gonna value you for how much you can love your little kid.

Bill Simpson 43:09

And you know, here we are moving into this age of Aquarius, and so it's here now, and so hopefully some of this balance will come into play as we move forward. You know, I think it's gonna get a little worse than it before it gets better. I think we just got to keep hope alive and keep love alive and and keep it going. You know.

Jack Kammer 43:30

When living things are healthy and balanced, they flourish. You're not losing power, you're creating more power. Yeah, creating more happiness for yourself. That needs to happen. But right now, the people who are not on board with that are largely the women who control our media and our politics. I don't think they're representative of every woman in America, but they are the most powerful. Yeah, they are the most influential. It could really help if we had social policies that recognize men for the values that they have, other than how much money they can provide and how tough they can be.

Bill Simpson 44:13

Absolutely. And to your point about power, that's what I work with in relationship coaching, is it's not about power. It's being true to you, being real, being authentic, and how can we work together to collaborate as a team versus trying to outpower one another? And when you try to be right, you try to outpower, you're just gonna meet power with power. And that can go on forever. And where's your happiness? Where's your love? Where's your connection? And it ain't about the power, it's about how can we work together. And that's what it's all about.

Bill Simpson 44:52

Well, Jack, uh, I really appreciate talking with you once again. And this book, I'll be frank, I do a lot of interviews with authors, and I'll I'll skim the book. I read this book, man, and I just couldn't put it down. And not so much from a compelling thing, it was just it helped me to understand women, and I think women need to read this book to hear these women saying what they were saying, this and offering this goodwill toward men. I just wish those who were more uh short-sighted or more extreme, whatever, were to hear these women and embrace a lot what they were saying because that's where I saw the balance and that's where I saw we can come together, we can collaborate. So thank you for your efforts 30 years ago and 30 plus years ago and and now. And I I wish you much success with your book.

Jack Kammer 45:46

Well, I want to thank you for the work you do and are doing and continue to do because you're doing it with individual men, you work with men in a very deep and important way. And probably not only change lives, but save lives.

Bill Simpson 46:01

Well, that's the hope. It's uh it's that love mission, man. We got to keep keep love alive.

Jack Kammer 46:07

Yes, sir. You're doing wonderful work, Bill. And I I love your podcasts and I listen to them.

Where To Get The Book

Bill Simpson 46:12

Great. I really do. Well, I do appreciate that. That means a lot to me, Jack. Thank you, Bill. Well, until next time, keep your heart open and stay on the path to love, my friend. Thanks. Take care, Bill. You too. And that's a wrap for this bonus episode of the Men on the Path to Love podcast. Is there still goodwill toward men? A conversation with author Jack Hammer. I'm Bill Simpson, your host. Thank you so much for listening. I want to thank Jack Hammer once again for joining me and for sharing his thoughtful perspective on these important conversations between men and women. And if you'd like to learn more, you can pick up Jack's book, Goodwill Toward Men, on Amazon or through multiple retailers by visiting his website at Jackkammer.com. There's two K's in there, okay? Jack Kammer, all right.com. And if you got something out of listening to this podcast or know someone who needs to hear it, then please share the link to this podcast and share the love. And until next time, keep your heart open and stay on the path to love.