UFC's Dana White Sympathizes with Young Men Displaced by Woke Era and Toxic Masculinity Talk

UFC president Dana White said Tuesday he sympathizes with young men who feel displaced amid panic over so-called toxic masculinity.

White appeared on The Katie Miller Podcast, hosted by Katie Miller, wife of White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller. She asked him about the state of young men and women in America today. White argued that young men face circumstances far different from those he knew growing up.

"Times are changing from when I was young," he said. "These young men, I think, you know, we went through COVID and the whole woke era and all the weird stuff that went on during that period. A lot of the young males felt displaced."

White said he often gets accused of being the head of the manosphere, whatever that means, and of promoting toxic masculinity. Miller argued, "The only people who hate toxic masculinity are women who hate themselves."

After White noted that even some men use the term, Miller said, "It means that men in our country need to grow a pair again."

White recalled a past interview with a journalist who kept mentioning the manosphere and toxic masculinity. He said he stopped taking either seriously after that. "I grew up in the 80s when, you know, men were men. Now it's a whole other world out there," he said.

Miller suggested women want a classic masculine man to fill the provider and caretaker role, but ideology labels that toxic. "Don't you think it's that women want a man to take care of them, to step into that provider caretaker role -- and that so many men are not doing that these days, and that's why it's just called toxic masculinity is what is a traditional gender role?" she asked.

"It is never, ever going to change," White said. "I don't care how powerful a woman is, what she does. Women want to be taken care of, treated right, and they want to feel safe. It's just that's nature. And it's a man's job to do all that."

He chuckled and added, "As I get deeper into this, you'll realize how toxic my masculinity is."

White criticized rhetoric around men's mental health. He said it misunderstands men's purpose as providers, who cannot spend time complaining online about a bad day.

Miller blamed feminism. "I'm a strong believer in that, like, when feminism started increasing in our country, so did the decline in the birth rate because, as they told women, you need to be equal to a man," she said.

She argued that when women stopped valuing motherhood, they lost their femininity, which led to weak men. "Yeah, you could be right," White replied. "I don't know how it all started, but there's nothing I hate like when men don't act like men. It's like it drives me absolutely crazy."