Thanks for this awesome interview, and for introducing me to Patrick Wyman!
I don't think feeling a sense of confidence and actualization through weightlifting should be radical for a woman, but it still really, really is. Everyday learned sexism ensures that women are scared of touching weights, and very real, very blatant, targeted sexism and harassment ensures that woman are marginalized in many weightlifting spaces. But it doesn't have to be that way, and it is slowly changing.
I hate that Bro culture 'owns' weightlifting, because I know it could be so fulfilling and helpful to so many people, especially women. And in discussions like this one, I see the nuance get lost and all of sudden 'weightlifting' is synonymous with bro culture, and not something that could be understood on its own terms as a phenomenally useful tool for any body, not just a young white man's.
Patrick's interview resonated really strongly with me because I am a woman who loves to lift weights and work out. Until recently, the gym I work for was a CrossFit affiliate, but Greg Glassman's BS in the late spring was the last nail in the coffin, and we de-affiliated (along with every other CrossFit in DC. We are all now independent gyms offering the same type of programming.) I'd love to have Patrick's perspective on this shift, which I think is similar nation-wide in big cities. My observation is that city CFs de-affiliated in droves and are now forging ahead independently, while rural and suburban CFs are mostly sticking with CrossFit HQ and the brand.
CrossFit culture was founded on Patrick's definition of Bro Culture, and if definitely spread far and fast because it appealed to that demographic. A prime example: "Hero" workouts named for Veterans with a capitol "V" (but almost never, somehow, veterans who are women or people of color).
But, and this is a huge 'but', I find myself trying to articulate all the time that the methodology of weightlifting and high intensity interval training is in fact pretty great, when coached well by someone who cares. And many gyms, especially those in big cities, were smart enough to attempt to reject the worst parts of Bro Culture in favor of conscientious community building. I say 'attempt' because it's clear that we have a long way to go. Most boutique gyms are heavily white and prohibitively expensive, and that won't be fixed by de-affiliating from CrossFit.
I guess what I came here to say is I wish the entire concept of 'weightlifting', and exercise itself, wasn't painted with such a broad brush as Bro-y and exclusionary. Exercise is for everyone, and lots of ways to exercise are free. Weightlifting can certainly be for everyone who is interested, and it doesn't have to cost a lot. All you need is a membership at your local Y, or a couple dumbbells at home, and some instruction by someone who cares. I think that people intuitively understand this, but I can't tell you how many men and women tell me how intimidated they are of any sort of weightlifting because they don't want to be in the room with big grunting bro-y bros talking about their protein shakes.
I get it, that trepidation is real. I still deal with it in some spaces. But the payoff of pursuing weightlifting for me personally has been so monumental, and certainly worth pushing through that fear and finding a welcoming gym with a supportive group of folks. Just as Patrick says he doesn't know what his adult body would look like without weightlifting, I honestly do not know what my life would look like without the confidence and self-actualization that i've gained through weightlifting and sport. It has been life-changing to re-align my self-worth, as a woman, from what I look like, to what I am capable of. And I don't mean that in the sense of value based on achievement, like an ever-escalating deadlift PR. I mean arriving at a place where I can spend some time each day marveling at this awesome body that I own, that is capable of doing all kinds of things that I enjoy.
I want to shout it from the mountain tops, "I want to see more women and people of color in the gym! I'll help you! I'm nice! Just ask me!" If we get enough of us together into the space, it won't be so intimidating anymore. You might know more than one woman who lifts weights for fun, and she won't be the weird, scary lady (I could write a whole thesis on that alone.) Anyway, thanks for the great piece!
The bro culture things is so difficult to deal with as a guy who is both well read, well educated, and in to activities that include a lot of bros. It has reached a point where I have had no choice but to move on from certain things because I simply do not fit in with the people who dominate those spaces.
For example, I got in to playing hockey in college because I went to a sort of nerdy tech school so the people I played hockey with were this weird mix of intellectual and bro. It was a great fit socially. I could unleash my inner bro in a place where the culture was more diverse and less aggressively stupid.
Trying to maintain a hobby like hockey a decade removed from that space has been difficult and borderline impossible, because so much of my dedication to that activity was my dedication to the people I was playing with. They were my friends, people I spent a lot of time with. We bro'd out, but in a very specific way.
Now, in my mid-thirties, I am struggling to fit in. The people who dominate these spaces are not people I want to be friends with. I'm not going to the bar with them after a game. It's a chore to drag myself to the rink to play with people I really don't like that much just to get some exercise. When I hurt my knee back in January I was actually relieved. Then the pandemic happened and the leagues shut down, and I was more relieved.
Will I play again some day? I hope so. But I'm going to need to find the right people. In the mean time, I have moved my energy in to other things where I fit better socially.
And I think that's what makes bro culture so powerful. There are a lot of guys out there from the same backgrounds (white, middle class) who are all looking for an identity because as they've gotten older they're finding out they don't really have one. So the lost boys head to the gym where they find an identity in their mutual lack of one. And when the gyms closed because of the pandemic, it was like taking their entire personality away from them.
I was literally just listening to an episode of Tides of History and couldn’t remember where I’d heard about it. Thank you both for bringing such important and well-told ideas to a bigger conversation.
Ever since reading the bro culture piece and adding it to my worries about anti-government extremism here in the inland Northwest, I’ve been wondering: how do communities like mine survive this culture? How do we raise our children in it? To raise a son to be vulnerable and himself but be able to exist and survive and communicate in places where bro culture dominates? I wonder how many other parents know this is out there and how,it will affect the coming generation.
GREAT point about the wars and returning veterans. I don’t see how we expect young people to keep coming home from imperial wars decade after decade and have it not affect the whole society.
The first time I thought about an American parallel was protesting the Iraq War in NYC in 2003, when I saw a protest sign that said "Even Rome Fell". But, whew, this year, 2020, this fucking year is when I *really* couldn't stop thinking about the fall of Rome. (Stoned, in April, texting my girlfriends "Hey, what do you think it was like to *actually* live through the fall of Rome"). Anyway, we're now reading SPQR by Mary Beard in our book club, but I wasn't familiar with Patrick Wyman. Thanks for the introduction! Subscribed!
His thoughts on this specific type of Bro Culture were so On Point! Wow. I'm a woman who loves powerlifting and I switched to a woman-owned gym the past few years because of the exclusionary nature of Bro Culture. That exclusion vibe is, I think, a feature and not an accident of Bro Culture and this interview helped me crystallize why that might be and how it's linked to American and our increasing global political isolation.
Really enjoyed the interview. The “academic magpie” comment stood out to me. It’s so bizarre for K-12 and even secondary schooling to [claim to] value multidisciplinary, critical thinking then punish you for it in post-secondary academia. Sorry, you can’t put the systems-genie back in the bottle. Everything is connected. Solidarity to the people.
Thank you for this! I just read Patrick’s piece on Amerocan gentry and was just nodding my head the whole time. I'm from Atlantic Canada and I'm a public accountant in a firm that specialises in mid-size business. These are my clients.
The ”McDonalds” heiress whose father owns 10 McDonald's in Newfoundland. The owner-manager of a construction company in Labrador who builds most of the roads in the area. The potato farmer who owns the second largest potato plant on Prince Edward Island, etc etc. They wield a lot of influence and are heavily involved in local and provincial politics lobbying for their interests. They're also the Candians who own large condos in Arizona and Florida and live there half of the year with McMansions on ocean property. Everyone in the small town knows who they are.
I have subscribed to his newsletter and look forward to more interviews!
This was a really fascinating interview, thank you! I hold with the people who think the era we're living in more resembles Late Republican Rome than Late Imperial Rome, but I can't deny that America's giving the Late Imperial view plenty of support lately.
Can't wait to read. True story - back in 2016 I got overwhelmed by the trajectory of the US, and wanted a listen that was NOT all about current events. That's when I discovered Tides and FOR! It was so damn soothing to hear about other empire's problems lol and escape a little bit.
Stopped reading by the time I got to "white people being forced to see themselves as white..." These people want to dehumanize me by categorizing me. Over it.
Thank you for this interview, and for the links to Patrick Wyman pieces. The Bro Culture post was a great analysis, and I _loved_ the video. When that type of guy has their guard down, their sense of humor is heartening. The American Gentry post, though, is a real eye-opener. The gentry of small and mid-sized towns and cites in the US is a woefully unexamined power base, I think in part because their existence contradicts a myth about equality that we rely on. The story is everyone counts the same. The fact is the owner of things counts more. Our professional political analysis apparatus has no language for this discrepancy, especially at the local level.
Consider that a lot of support for our last president came from the owners of car dealerships, from HVAC contractors, etc. and that almost no attention was paid to that support by analysts who were/are so quick to hang the whole thing on the "working class."
Thanks for this awesome interview, and for introducing me to Patrick Wyman!
I don't think feeling a sense of confidence and actualization through weightlifting should be radical for a woman, but it still really, really is. Everyday learned sexism ensures that women are scared of touching weights, and very real, very blatant, targeted sexism and harassment ensures that woman are marginalized in many weightlifting spaces. But it doesn't have to be that way, and it is slowly changing.
I hate that Bro culture 'owns' weightlifting, because I know it could be so fulfilling and helpful to so many people, especially women. And in discussions like this one, I see the nuance get lost and all of sudden 'weightlifting' is synonymous with bro culture, and not something that could be understood on its own terms as a phenomenally useful tool for any body, not just a young white man's.
Patrick's interview resonated really strongly with me because I am a woman who loves to lift weights and work out. Until recently, the gym I work for was a CrossFit affiliate, but Greg Glassman's BS in the late spring was the last nail in the coffin, and we de-affiliated (along with every other CrossFit in DC. We are all now independent gyms offering the same type of programming.) I'd love to have Patrick's perspective on this shift, which I think is similar nation-wide in big cities. My observation is that city CFs de-affiliated in droves and are now forging ahead independently, while rural and suburban CFs are mostly sticking with CrossFit HQ and the brand.
CrossFit culture was founded on Patrick's definition of Bro Culture, and if definitely spread far and fast because it appealed to that demographic. A prime example: "Hero" workouts named for Veterans with a capitol "V" (but almost never, somehow, veterans who are women or people of color).
But, and this is a huge 'but', I find myself trying to articulate all the time that the methodology of weightlifting and high intensity interval training is in fact pretty great, when coached well by someone who cares. And many gyms, especially those in big cities, were smart enough to attempt to reject the worst parts of Bro Culture in favor of conscientious community building. I say 'attempt' because it's clear that we have a long way to go. Most boutique gyms are heavily white and prohibitively expensive, and that won't be fixed by de-affiliating from CrossFit.
I guess what I came here to say is I wish the entire concept of 'weightlifting', and exercise itself, wasn't painted with such a broad brush as Bro-y and exclusionary. Exercise is for everyone, and lots of ways to exercise are free. Weightlifting can certainly be for everyone who is interested, and it doesn't have to cost a lot. All you need is a membership at your local Y, or a couple dumbbells at home, and some instruction by someone who cares. I think that people intuitively understand this, but I can't tell you how many men and women tell me how intimidated they are of any sort of weightlifting because they don't want to be in the room with big grunting bro-y bros talking about their protein shakes.
I get it, that trepidation is real. I still deal with it in some spaces. But the payoff of pursuing weightlifting for me personally has been so monumental, and certainly worth pushing through that fear and finding a welcoming gym with a supportive group of folks. Just as Patrick says he doesn't know what his adult body would look like without weightlifting, I honestly do not know what my life would look like without the confidence and self-actualization that i've gained through weightlifting and sport. It has been life-changing to re-align my self-worth, as a woman, from what I look like, to what I am capable of. And I don't mean that in the sense of value based on achievement, like an ever-escalating deadlift PR. I mean arriving at a place where I can spend some time each day marveling at this awesome body that I own, that is capable of doing all kinds of things that I enjoy.
I want to shout it from the mountain tops, "I want to see more women and people of color in the gym! I'll help you! I'm nice! Just ask me!" If we get enough of us together into the space, it won't be so intimidating anymore. You might know more than one woman who lifts weights for fun, and she won't be the weird, scary lady (I could write a whole thesis on that alone.) Anyway, thanks for the great piece!
The bro culture things is so difficult to deal with as a guy who is both well read, well educated, and in to activities that include a lot of bros. It has reached a point where I have had no choice but to move on from certain things because I simply do not fit in with the people who dominate those spaces.
For example, I got in to playing hockey in college because I went to a sort of nerdy tech school so the people I played hockey with were this weird mix of intellectual and bro. It was a great fit socially. I could unleash my inner bro in a place where the culture was more diverse and less aggressively stupid.
Trying to maintain a hobby like hockey a decade removed from that space has been difficult and borderline impossible, because so much of my dedication to that activity was my dedication to the people I was playing with. They were my friends, people I spent a lot of time with. We bro'd out, but in a very specific way.
Now, in my mid-thirties, I am struggling to fit in. The people who dominate these spaces are not people I want to be friends with. I'm not going to the bar with them after a game. It's a chore to drag myself to the rink to play with people I really don't like that much just to get some exercise. When I hurt my knee back in January I was actually relieved. Then the pandemic happened and the leagues shut down, and I was more relieved.
Will I play again some day? I hope so. But I'm going to need to find the right people. In the mean time, I have moved my energy in to other things where I fit better socially.
And I think that's what makes bro culture so powerful. There are a lot of guys out there from the same backgrounds (white, middle class) who are all looking for an identity because as they've gotten older they're finding out they don't really have one. So the lost boys head to the gym where they find an identity in their mutual lack of one. And when the gyms closed because of the pandemic, it was like taking their entire personality away from them.
I was literally just listening to an episode of Tides of History and couldn’t remember where I’d heard about it. Thank you both for bringing such important and well-told ideas to a bigger conversation.
Ever since reading the bro culture piece and adding it to my worries about anti-government extremism here in the inland Northwest, I’ve been wondering: how do communities like mine survive this culture? How do we raise our children in it? To raise a son to be vulnerable and himself but be able to exist and survive and communicate in places where bro culture dominates? I wonder how many other parents know this is out there and how,it will affect the coming generation.
GREAT point about the wars and returning veterans. I don’t see how we expect young people to keep coming home from imperial wars decade after decade and have it not affect the whole society.
The first time I thought about an American parallel was protesting the Iraq War in NYC in 2003, when I saw a protest sign that said "Even Rome Fell". But, whew, this year, 2020, this fucking year is when I *really* couldn't stop thinking about the fall of Rome. (Stoned, in April, texting my girlfriends "Hey, what do you think it was like to *actually* live through the fall of Rome"). Anyway, we're now reading SPQR by Mary Beard in our book club, but I wasn't familiar with Patrick Wyman. Thanks for the introduction! Subscribed!
His thoughts on this specific type of Bro Culture were so On Point! Wow. I'm a woman who loves powerlifting and I switched to a woman-owned gym the past few years because of the exclusionary nature of Bro Culture. That exclusion vibe is, I think, a feature and not an accident of Bro Culture and this interview helped me crystallize why that might be and how it's linked to American and our increasing global political isolation.
Really enjoyed the interview. The “academic magpie” comment stood out to me. It’s so bizarre for K-12 and even secondary schooling to [claim to] value multidisciplinary, critical thinking then punish you for it in post-secondary academia. Sorry, you can’t put the systems-genie back in the bottle. Everything is connected. Solidarity to the people.
This was riveting and now I am off to read everything else he has written. Thank you for this!
Thank you for this! I just read Patrick’s piece on Amerocan gentry and was just nodding my head the whole time. I'm from Atlantic Canada and I'm a public accountant in a firm that specialises in mid-size business. These are my clients.
The ”McDonalds” heiress whose father owns 10 McDonald's in Newfoundland. The owner-manager of a construction company in Labrador who builds most of the roads in the area. The potato farmer who owns the second largest potato plant on Prince Edward Island, etc etc. They wield a lot of influence and are heavily involved in local and provincial politics lobbying for their interests. They're also the Candians who own large condos in Arizona and Florida and live there half of the year with McMansions on ocean property. Everyone in the small town knows who they are.
I have subscribed to his newsletter and look forward to more interviews!
This was a really fascinating interview, thank you! I hold with the people who think the era we're living in more resembles Late Republican Rome than Late Imperial Rome, but I can't deny that America's giving the Late Imperial view plenty of support lately.
Can't wait to read. True story - back in 2016 I got overwhelmed by the trajectory of the US, and wanted a listen that was NOT all about current events. That's when I discovered Tides and FOR! It was so damn soothing to hear about other empire's problems lol and escape a little bit.
Thanks for this and for the introduction to Patrick!
Okay this got me to subscribe! History PHD not faculty interested in how people use it and a Tides listener!
Thank you for introducing us to Patrick. First rate questions and a wonderful discussion.
This interview rules, Patricks, and you rule! Thank for this. Holy cow.
Stopped reading by the time I got to "white people being forced to see themselves as white..." These people want to dehumanize me by categorizing me. Over it.
Thank you for this interview, and for the links to Patrick Wyman pieces. The Bro Culture post was a great analysis, and I _loved_ the video. When that type of guy has their guard down, their sense of humor is heartening. The American Gentry post, though, is a real eye-opener. The gentry of small and mid-sized towns and cites in the US is a woefully unexamined power base, I think in part because their existence contradicts a myth about equality that we rely on. The story is everyone counts the same. The fact is the owner of things counts more. Our professional political analysis apparatus has no language for this discrepancy, especially at the local level.
Consider that a lot of support for our last president came from the owners of car dealerships, from HVAC contractors, etc. and that almost no attention was paid to that support by analysts who were/are so quick to hang the whole thing on the "working class."
I thought Weyman and Tides and Fall of Rome was my own weird nerd thing! Of course you’re into it. This is when the internet isn’t the worst.