Spring 1983. This is the pilot episode of the show that started as “The Lives of Men.” WCVT tested it as a Special of the Week and decided to give it a go to start in the Fall of 1983. The pilot is just Jack talking about his philosophy and approach.

October 6, 1983. Jack introduces the show.

Taped in May 1983; aired in the fall of 1983. Richard Haddad was a pioneer of the men’s movement; in 1976-77 he founded Free Men, one of the earliest men’s movement organizations. Rich discusses what led him to create the group and how it was initially received. We ended the show with Rich’s song “Breaking Free.”

October 25, 1984. Seven-time Emmy Award winning actor Ed Asner explains his interest in the Coalition of Free Men and why he is a member of its Board of Advisors.

March 14 & March 21, 1985. RIchard Rowe, Director of Urban Affairs at the Baltimore Urban League, discusses the conference sponsored by the Urban League and the Black Male Mental Health Alliance on "Black Men: An Endangered Species" in November 1984.

November 14, 1985. Warren Farrell served on the board of New York City Now in the 1970s. His first book was The Liberated Man. We talked with him as he was finishing work on his new book Why Men Are the Way They Are.

November 28, 1985. Patrick Tyrrell was the Director of the Council on Alcoholism in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the location of the high-achieving, high-stress Los Alamos National Laboratory which conducts much of the United States’ nuclear weapons research.

December 5, 1985. RIchard Rowe, Director of Health and Welfare for the Baltimore Urban League, discusses the double whammy (more recently called intersectionality) of racism and sexism operating against Black men and boys.

February 20, 1986. Kathy Robinson rides the NJ-NY train to and from her job as a department store buyer in Manhattan. Michael Robinson, her husband, stays at home to raise their two sons. How’s that working for them? (How could it work for you?)

February 27, 1986. David Giveans was the editor and publisher of Nurturing News: A Quarterly Forum for Nurturing Men. He was also the producer of the documentary film Men in Early Childhood Education. He was instrumental in creating the Men's Caucus in the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

August 28, 1986. Richard Rowe, Director of Health and Human Services for the Baltimore Urban League, discusses the 1986 CBS documentary “The Vanishing Family” and, to a lesser extent, the television mini-series “The Color Purple.” You can view “The Vanishing Family” in its entirety here.

September 18, 1986. Asa Baber wrote the “Men” column for Playboy magazine. We talked about criticism of the magazine and the Meese Commission’s allegations and campaign against it. Generally we spoke of the difference between pornography and erotica.

September 25, 1986. Roland Newman was a U.S. Marine who served in Vietnam. A mortar shell blew off both his legs. James Workman was a Team Leader in the VA’s Baltimore Vet Center where he assists returning veterans.

October 16, 1986. Roy Schenk’s analysis of the (anti-male) sexism that gets too little attention. We talked about the vicious cycle of men and women insisting that they are superior while the other is inferior; the idea that guilt is particularly vexing to women while the related but distinct feeling of shame is the bane of men.

May 14, 1987. Herb Goldberg was a psychologist in Los Angeles who wrote The Hazards of Being Male, the first and most influential book in shaping and informing Jack’s awareness of men’s issues.

September 29, 1987. Michael Lafavore, Editor of Men’s Health Magazine, discusses the editorial goals and strategy of Men’s Health and how it compares to other men’s magazines, and women’s magazines too.

September 29, 1987. Warren Farrell unpacks the myths and realities of differences in women’s and men’s earnings.

November 19, 1987. Three dancers, all male. Brett and Christian are professional dancers with Diane Ramo’s Downtown Dance Company in Baltimore; Tony is a student. The discussion might be summarized as: Why men dance and Why men don’t.

October 6, 1988. Derek Gill was a sociologist and zoologist, and the author of Illegitimacy, Sexuality and the Status of Women. Tim Perper was a biologist and the author of Sex Signals about his thousand hours of field work in bars watching interactions between men and women.

January 5, 1989. Phyllis Schlafly was an attorney, the president of the Eagle Forum — a conservative public policy organization — and the most prominent opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment.

January 12, 1989. Jack talks with Gloria Steinem, one of America’s most noted feminists, co-founder of Ms. Magazine and author of multiple books about the idea of women as Fair Damsels Riding to the Rescue of Knights in Distress. The letter I sent to Gloria Steinem via Ms. magazine is here.