It’s a website. It’s a podcast. It has “manliness” at the top of the page in big bold letters, so why is a woman recommending this to her mixed-gender audience?
Simple: both the site and the podcast have lots of good stuff that isn’t really just for men.
Sure, there are posts I can’t relate to, like “Five Ways a Beard Will Make Your Winter Better (and Even Save Your Life).” But for every piece like that, there are more that can be useful to anyone, such as “Decluttering Your Digital Life,” “Seven Simple Exercises That Undo the Damage of Sitting,” “The Basics of Finishing Wood,” “The Unexpected Upside of a Lean Season,” and many more.
The podcast is also interesting, often covering gender-neutral advice on things like approaching life from an action-oriented mindset, and fascinating topics like “Everything You Know About Ninjas Is Wrong.”
The site has a slightly conservative view of men and manliness; as a guest writer on using guns for home defense puts it, “A man has always been the king of his castle and protector of his domain.” This conservative bent shows up in the look of the site, too. While part of me likes the vintage look, it signals a return to the past “when men were men” (my words, not the site’s). The illustrations feature almost exclusively white people; I’m guessing this is an oversight on the part of the creators, but I do wish they would make more of an effort to be inclusive.
Readers should note that, despite the old-fashioned look to the site, it’s fairly modern — there’s even an article on being a stay-at-home dad. I encourage my more liberal readers to give the site and podcast a try, because there’s lots of good stuff on both of them. Someday I may write more about this as a “make a difference” post, but as someone who has loved ones who are conservative and loved ones who are liberal, I believe we can coexist and learn from each other, even when we disagree.
There is one danger to the site: Once you start exploring it, you can easily get sucked down a rabbit hole and spend entirely too much time moving from article to article. It might be wise to set strict limits on the amount of time you spend on the site each day!