Top Gear star James May has stated that men are gaining a negative reputation, and those in his age group are being dismissed.
The 61-year-old The Grand Tour host joined his former co-star Richard Hammond to talk about toxic masculinity, and being an 'older, white man' these days.
May has previously claimed that 'wokeness' caused him to miss out on a big job earlier in his career, apparently because he wasn't a woman, before he went on to become one of the highest paid TV stars of the last two decades.
Discussing 'toxic masculinity' in general, May was asked whether the 'modern man was in trouble'.
He replied: 'Well probably not, because the world rarely does go to the dogs.’
Speaking on the Who We Are Now podcast, he went on: 'But I do think men are getting a bit of a bad rap recently, because there is a lot of talk about toxic masculinity, and I know there is a lot of it around, and it's correct that we confront it and address it and all that.
'But it's not all of us, and we seem to be getting close to a point where simply being a man, especially if you're a slightly older, lower middle class, white man to be honest, you're almost immediately dismissed as being unworthy.'
When asked if he meant 'dismissed' or being 'guilty of something', May said: 'Maybe we are guilty. I don't feel guilty and I do examine myself.'
'I don't think I've been particularly toxic, have I?' he added, to which Hammond's daughter Izzy – who he co-hosts the podcast with – replied: 'I don't think you have, James. I don't think you're a toxic person.'
She continued: 'There's a sense of accountability that's needed for the ones that are toxic, that have said things, that have acted in a way that is wrong.
'And I think the problem is – there was a statistic that went around a couple of years ago that like 97 percent of women had been stared at, cat-called, anything like that, everyone has had that.
'And the problem is – obviously it's not all men, obviously we get that – but the problem is that there will be people you know that have done that and no one's picking up on it.
'And I just think men just kind of let other men get away with it because it's uncomfortable to say to a friend or something, “I don't like those opinions, I don't know why you're saying that, I don't know why you're acting like that, that's inappropriate.”'
'So we are the old expression, 'Evil happens when good people say nothing,' we're guilty of that,' May added, admitting he does know people who give a 'bad rap'.
However, he went on to say that 'being a man is getting easier', saying: 'Because I don't care anymore, that's part of it.'
Hammond agreed, recalling how in his 20s he felt as though he 'had to conform with what was seen to be the masculine norm', with May saying: 'There were not hard boundaries, but the boundaries were more prominent and much narrower.'
Their remarks come after May stating that he is too old for a contemporary edition of Top Gear, and stating: ‘We will need to retire at some point and in my opinion that dreadful day is almost here.’
