The Celebrating Men Podcast
Eight authors. Eight conversations. One question the world keeps declining to ask.
Count how a man is portrayed the next time you turn on the news. Sixty-nine percent of media coverage of men is unfavorable. Twelve percent is positive. A boy grows up inside that arithmetic long before he is old enough to argue with it.
Celebrating Men is the counterweight.
It is the video podcast of the International Council for Men and Boys. Across its first season, eight authors, researchers, clinicians, and survivors sat down to say plainly what they had spent their careers learning — about how boys are taught, how men grieve, how abuse gets counted, and what happens to a culture that quietly stops expecting anything good from half its population.
The tone is deliberate. This show does not open with grievance. It opens with people worth listening to.
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Why we built it
ICMB documents twelve areas where men and boys are falling behind worldwide — education, health, fatherhood, criminal justice, workplace deaths, homelessness, partner abuse, and more. Documentation moves policy. It rarely moves people.
People move when someone tells them something true and they find they cannot unhear it.
So we handed the microphone to those who had already done the work. A therapist with four decades of practice. A science teacher who tracked down six schools that closed the boys’ attainment gap without a penny of extra funding. A Nigerian founder whose organization has reached more than 20,000 boys and men. A former strongman competitor who was beaten by someone half his size and spent years working out why.
Every one of them arrived with evidence. Every one of them left an argument behind.
That is the purpose of this podcast — to move the conversation about men from problems to purpose, and to put something in the hands of the parents, teachers, advocates, journalists, and lawmakers who are ready to use it.
A podcast built to be shared
Most interviews are one long recording that most people never finish. Ours is built differently, and it is the thing our guests mention first.
Every question is written from the guest’s own book, sent to them in advance, and shaped so that the answer stands completely on its own — sixty to ninety seconds, no prior context required. What comes out is two things at once: a full-length interview for anyone who wants the depth, and fifteen to twenty short films for everyone who will only ever watch one.
So you can sit with an entire episode, or send a single ninety-second clip to the one person who needs to see it today. Both were designed on purpose.
Podcast Guests
- Mike Bell — science teacher and author of Yes He Can, on why boys fall behind at school and the six schools that closed the gap without extra funding. The Real Reason Boys Are Falling Behind
- Halima Layeni — founder of the Life After Abuse Foundation in Nigeria, whose free mental health services have reached more than 20,000 boys and men. She’s Helping Men Heal, and Here’s Why the World Needs It
- Jared Whitaker — author of Built to Be Broken and survivor of a ten-year abusive relationship, on why abusers target strength rather than weakness. The Psychological Trap That Keeps Strong Men in Toxic Relationships
- David Shackleton — author of MatriSensus: Masculine Collapse and Feminine Shadow, on the cultural patterns behind victim culture and the male identity crisis. The Male Identity Crisis Is Getting Worse
- Lisa Britton — author and advocate, on her path from feminist advocacy to speaking for men and boys, and why supporting men is not opposing women. Abuse Has No Gender, But Society Won’t Admit It
- Dr. Carl Reinhold Augustsson — professor and author, making the case for a global convention on discrimination against men, with fifty-plus real-world examples. The Convention No One Wants to Talk About
- David Maywald — author and advocate, on fatherlessness, the damage done by toxic-masculinity labels, and what gives him hope that change has started. The Relentless War on Masculinity
- Tom Golden — therapist and author, on how men actually grieve and why male pain is so often missed or misread. Why Men Don’t Talk About Pain
