Of Boys and Men (and Barbie and Ken)
Men and boys are struggling in a lot of ways right now, as a recent book illustrates. Let's talk about it.
First off, let’s state the obvious.
There is very little interest right now in hearing about the problems of men.
Given that a structure of patriarchy benefitting men in many ways has existed across cultures for thousands of years, any discourse about how men adapt to an emerging world where some advantages are shrinking and real problems are emerging is inherently fraught.
It’s a complicated enough subject that I wrestled with whether to even write about it.
It’s a delicate enough subject that I asked my wife earnestly: How do I even start a post like this?
(Her advice, more or less, is what you see at the top: Acknowledging that patriarchal structures have been around for far longer than any of us have been alive and still have deep roots in society today even as some progress has been made).
But I think it’s important to have honest conversations. A book I just finished and a related Substack that I recently found manage to lay out how and why men are struggling in a way that allows an honest entry point into the topic.
In “Of Boys and Men,” author Richard V. Reeves lays out the ways boys and men are struggling in education, the workforce, family life and mental health.
His Substack has conveniently linkable charts, graphs and data very similar to ideas in the book. Among the most sobering facts from various posts:
The suicide rate for males in the United States, according to 2020 data, was four times higher than it was for females. The ratio was essentially unchanged by 2022, when nearly 40,000 U.S. men and a little over 10,000 U.S. women died by suicide.
The life expectancy gap between males and females in the U.S. is almost six years, the highest it has been since the mid-1990s. The culprits are myriad but here are two: deaths of despair (which includes suicide but also deaths due to opioids, alcohol and similar factors) and the fact that COVID — particularly using age-adjusted data — kills men at a far higher rate than women.
There are fewer men in what Reeves calls HEAL industries — health, education, administration and literacy — than in 1980. Almost a half-century ago, men made up 35% of workers in those categories. Now it’s 26%, and it is a big reason men have had a hard time adapting to a labor market that has been shedding manufacturing jobs for decades.
Boys and young men are falling behind girls and women in education — in part because of great gains of the latter but also because of stagnation and declines for the former, particularly in poor areas.
Do the numbers on male suicides and COVID deaths surprise you? They sure surprised me, which is part of what Reeves is saying: Why aren’t we talking more about this?
But Reeves’ work goes beyond data, which is where it treads into an area more difficult to define and navigate.
He sees men living in a world that is hardly unfair — quite the opposite — but one that is changing so fast that many men are caught in an identity crisis.
Their roles as sole or main providers in families are vanishing. More is expected of them as fathers and as parents in general. The “traditional” values of the patriarchy are being eradicated.
To all of this, one might (correctly) say: Good! Evolve! But it doesn’t happen without a certain guidance. And it doesn’t happen immediately, even if one might argue it is happening too slowly.
Inevitably the resulting tension from the struggle has produced extremes, particularly among those who would like to move backward instead of forward when it comes to gender equality.
Where Reeves is particularly impressive is in resisting the urge to engage in dangerous “both sides-isms.” Instead, he deals in fact-based critiques of progressive and conservative ideologies when he sees fit but does not strain to find equal blame.
There is no grievance in his approach — far from it, in fact.
As he recently wrote: “We can do so even as we continue to do the necessary work for women and girls. We can think two thoughts at once. We can do two things at once. We have to make men young men feel like gender equality, gender equity and feminism are things that are for them and that we're not only asking them to be good allies - which we should - and we're not only asking them to examine their own prejudices - which we should - but that we're also working for them because if young men feel like we're not working for them we're not speaking for them they'll go find someone who they think is. And we may not like who that person is.”
I don’t always fully agree with his characterizations, but I could at least see how he got there — and my thoughts were expanded in the process. (Reeves pulled off the same feat with a book of his I read several years ago, “Dream Hoarders,” which I didn’t realize was also his work until after I read “Of Boys and Men”).
His latest book was resonant not so much because I feel myself engaged in a particular struggle — or at least note one specific to being a man. Rather, I see evidence all around me that there is a male identity crisis happening.
It was one of my favorite parts of “Barbie” — yes, we’ve finally arrived at the second piece of the headline — and an underrated part at that.
A movie about the patriarchy was inevitably going to deal with men, but the subplot of Ryan Gosling’s lost Ken muddling through his path was both over-the-top fun and a sobering critique.
Eliana Dockterman, writing at Time.com, captured the essence beautifully when she said: “Writer-director Greta Gerwig transforms a joke about the forgettable male doll into a meditation on the state of masculinity at a moment when so many young men, feeling disempowered, have found misguided solace in the patriarchy.”
We weren’t supposed to sympathize with Ken, nor is that really the point of Reeves’ work.
It’s not (K)enough to say, “figure it out,” or — worse — describe men and boys as broken. There has to be a path forward to show those who are ready for it (and to hopefully convince those who aren’t there yet).
To that end, Reeves lays out some practical solutions. (It should be noted that none of what he advocates for is in place of programs or progress benefitting girls and women. Rather, it is in addition to sustaining those efforts).
He argues for a bold education policy shift: boys should start kindergarten a year later than girls. He wants investment in getting men into HEAL jobs, both for their own benefit and to make up for shortfalls in workers in those categories.
Reeves lobbies for an increased emphasis on men’s mental health, both from policy initiatives and within from the reconstruction of friendships. And he argues for a renewed definition of fatherhood that helps provide structure around a shifting role.
He is so committed to this subject, by the way, that he recently founded the American Institute for Boys and Men.
Again, I don’t agree with all of it. The “redshirt” idea for boys in school is fraught with all sorts of practical and logistical problems, which might render it more trouble than it is worth at best.
I’m still not convinced in general how much boys and men need a thumb on the scale after having much more for so long and while the patriarchy in some form still very much exists (it’s just hidden better, as “Barbie” reminds us).
A healthy share of the progress should come from personal and collective growth, not merely sympathetic policy.
But simply ignoring the data on how boys and men are struggling — and in the process the reality of today’s world — is not the answer.
The struggle is real, and we should treat it that way.