How Do Boys Learn to Survive in a Gender Equality World? What Do Girls Really Want to Know About Their Fathers?
We have not given a new vision for men in this new world of gender equality, and that failure to adjust and adapt is something that happens on its own. I think our collective cultural failure to do that is one of the root causes of some of the problems that we now see men and boys having.
I did not know a lot about it. First, boys are much more hindered by challenging environments than girls. Girls in poor neighborhoods and unstable families may be able to climb their way out. Boys aren’t likely to do that. Boys who are born into the richest households are more likely to be poor than their female counterparts. In American schools, boys’ academic performance is more influenced by family background than girls’ performance. Boys raised by single parents have lower rates of college enrollment than girls raised by single parents.
Second, policies and programs designed to promote social mobility often work for women, but not men. High school graduates are able to attend many colleges in Michigan free of cost thanks to a donor. The program increased the number of women getting college degrees by 45 percent. The men’s graduation rates didn’t change. It is shown that a whole series of programs, from early childhood education to college support efforts, did not increase the number of men.
The most controversial proposal is to have boys start school a year earlier than girls, because of the fact that the brain regions involved in self-regulation are less mature in girls than in boys.
What do we do about men? What does it take to become a man to work? A look at the wages of women in the United States
I went to a nail salon in a mall in Uganda and was surprised at the number of men working there. When I asked one of the employees why this was, he explained that doing nails was men’s work because it paid well. A local newspaper stated that the salon wasn’t unique and there wasn’t a visitor that wouldn’t notice the young men carrying a basket with a manicure set.
The result is a book that, while often useful and interesting, also reveals the limits of wonky moderation. (I wasn’t surprised to learn that Reeves once served as director of strategy for the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat and self-described “radical” centrist.) The decisions that have made American life brutal for women and men are not a result of partisanship, according to Reeves.
Sixty years ago, close to 97% of men in that group were working or looking for work. There has been a steady decline since then. In October, the number was 88.5%, a slight dip from the previous two months.
Rather than try to recapture an era that is long gone, Reeves argues we should help men adapt to the jobs of the future — including many that are now overwhelmingly performed by women.
It was a bit difficult to write about boys and men because of the criticism you could get if you turned the focus away from girls and women. But you call that a false choice. Can you explain that?
You say the economic relationship between men and women has transformed so rapidly that our culture has not yet caught up. Women have gone to work. They don’t need to depend on men for their income.
The main goal of the post-war women’s movement was to secure economic independence for women so that they didn’t have to rely on men in a material sense. It has been achieved in a large degree quickly.
There is still a gender pay gap, but there are two sides to that story. We’ve seen a rise in women’s wages across the board, but especially at the top. And we’ve actually seen a decline in male wages in the middle and at the bottom. So most men in the U.S. today earn less than most men did in 1979, which is an extraordinary economic retreat.
It has been a great success. It’s hard for our culture to keep up when it happens quickly. It’s very hard for our ideas of fatherhood, motherhood, masculinity, femininity, family life to adapt as quickly as the fundamental economics have changed.
The general pattern is of widening inequality of wages in the US, with the exception of stagnant wages for the majority of men. And that’s created this economic malaise.
The kind of jobs which can be done using physical strength and/ or low levels of education have been removed from the labor market. Stereotypically, the guy with maybe a high school diploma could come out and get a pretty good union job in a factory. And those jobs are just becoming scarcer and scarcer because of these changes in the economy.
There’s been a dramatic shift away from so-called “brawny” jobs, those requiring physical strength, such as manufacturing. You say that there is a solution that doesn’t bring back “brawny” jobs for men, but that men can take jobs in the HEAL sectors. Tell about HEAL.
I think it is tempting for politicians to think we could bring back those jobs. That is magic wand-ism. There’s very little that can be done realistically to turn the tide back on such deep economic changes.
But where are the jobs coming from? Many are coming to work in the HEAL sectors. In some ways, it’s the mirror image of STEM — science, technology, engineering and math.
There are some shortages in professions such as nursing and teaching. These are actually sectors that are looking for workers, but if anything, they have become more female-dominated in the last few decades.
Among psychologists under the age of 30, only 5% are male. That’s a profession that was was actually slightly male in the 1980s. 40% of elementary and middle school teachers were male in 1980. Now it’s down to one in 10 in elementary schools.
I have one son who works in early education. He can talk quite movingly about the stigma that you’ll face as a man. People will question your motives. Some people might suggest that you may be motivated by pedophilia. “What is it about young kids that appeals to you?” is a question that you hear a lot.
There are stereotypes that men in those professions have. There are barriers, so we have to be realistic about that. What that means is we have to work extra hard to try to make those professions seem like they are appropriate to men.
If you have a mental health problem, and you want a psychologist, there are going to be men who would prefer a male therapist. I definitely did better with a male therapist.
Substance abuse counseling is one area where you take it. Most substance abuse counselors are women. Most children referred to special needs are boys, but most special needs teachers are women. And so on.
There’s a mismatch between the sex of the user and the provider. If it’s a woman, I think it’s better, but I’m not saying it’s always important. But there is enough evidence to suggest that sometimes it’s good to have a man caring for a boy or another man.
You note that there’s not a lot of acknowledgement of these problems unique to men and boys. What are the consequences of continued silence on the issue?
I think the consequences of failing to look these problems squarely in the face and address them is, firstly, that they will get worse. They aren’t going to solve their own problems. They will need a public policy to address them.
That issue can be missed at a deeper level and can lead to grievances. And that then can be exploited by some skillful populists or online personalities or whoever it is.
A lot of young men feel neglected or ignored at the moment, as well as a lot of men who feel that they are being dismissed. That creates some really fertile soil for some pretty bad stuff to get seeded. And I think we are reaping the consequences of our own neglect.