All human life stems from the reality of, and the difference between, men and women.

~ Nina Power – What do Men Want? Masculinity and its Discontents

In this series of posts about the boys and men crisis described by Richard Reeves (Of Boys and Men), I have detailed eleven problems and conditions faced by men and boys and fourteen solutions offered by Reeves to address these problems. One of Reeves’s most important contributions is “naming” and elucidating the “twelfth” problem of how the political Left and Right are unhelpful and wrong in their narratives about the crisis. He critiques the views about biological differences on both sides of the political spectrum. But it is the political Left that is most problematic in this arena.

Progressives Often Deny the Neuroscience of Sex Differences

As I said in Part 3.1 (What the Political Left Gets Wrong About Boys and Men) many progressives deny the neuroscience of sex differences. “For many progressives, it is now axiomatic that sex differences or behaviors are wholly the results of socialization,” Reeves laments. (Acknowledging biological differences between the sexes is not very “woke.”)

As part of its mission, Mating Straight Talk has criticized this “standard social science model (SSSM)”* and has described research of evolutionary psychology that incorporates natural selection and sexual selection in understanding the co-evolution of culture and biological adaptation.

Let’s Review Biological Sex Differences in the Next Two Posts

Because the political Left is so resistant to acknowledging biological sex differences, Parts 5.1 and 5.2 of this series will review some differences supported by research.

First — the Caveats About Biological Differences

The idea that there is a natural basis for sex difference is, however, politically charged. So, I’d better get the caveats in right away. ~ Richard Reeves

Reeves anticipated the degree of pushback he would get for acknowledging and researching biological sex differences. He went out of his way to soften the message with the caveats listed below. All these caveats are addressed and accepted by the discipline of evolutionary psychology and mate selection science (and in the website pages and blogs of Mating Straight Talk), except for Caveat #3.

Caveats Do Not Dilute Power of Average Differences

These caveats do not dilute the power of average differences between men and women that affect our relationships and culture. We can confirm the basic “rules” of our biology represented by the middle two-thirds of the bell curve while being curious about and honoring the exceptions to the rule.

Caveat #1: Differences are dimorphic but overlapping – rather than binary.

While certain traits are more associated with one sex than the other, the distributions overlap, especially among adults. For every brain measure that showed significant sex differences, there was always an overlap.

For example, the typical male is more willing to take risks than the typical female (especially in adolescence). But some women are more risk-taking than some men. A large majority of the most aggressive people are male, but the differences in aggressiveness in the general population are much smaller.

Caveat #2: Sex differences can be magnified by culture.

The immediate environment and broader culture affect how these biological differences develop and are expressed. Sex differences can be magnified or muted by culture. Culture and biology do not develop separately from each other. They co-evolve.

“It is hard to find a responsible scientist who is either an outright determinist or an outright denier on the question of biology,” says Reeves.

But Reeves identified outright deniers in an earlier section of the book. Denial of biological differences was, for Reeves, a significant motivation for writing this book.

Neuroscientist Lou Ann Brizendine (The Female Brain and The Male Brain) writes: “Biology does represent the foundation of our personalities and behavioral tendencies. If, in the name of free will and political correctness, we try to deny the influence of biology on the brain, we begin fighting our own nature.”

Yet, as British neurobiologist Gina Rippon explains, “it is perfectly possible to believe in biology without mindlessly assuming that human nature is fixed and unchangeable or that culture and environment are irrelevant.”

Caveat #3: Sex Differences have a modest impact on our day-to-day lives.

Reeves claims sex differences typically have a modest impact on day-to-day lives in the twenty-first century. He says there is more room for other drivers of behavior. Reeves supports a three-part model of human behavior: a combination of nature (our instincts based on biology), nurture (the instructions we get from our surrounding culture), and agency (our personal initiative.) This model is an excellent starting point for understanding our behavior. No doubt, much of the drama of human life stems from the tension between these forces.

Disagreement About the Impact of Sex Differences

I argue two things related to this caveat: 1) the impact of sex differences is more than “modest” in our daily lives, and 2) culture and personal agency are interdependent with sex differences, not separate from them.

To the first point: biological sex differences have a powerful impact on our current cultural milieu – on the tone of our near-ubiquitous conversations about gender identity and sexual preference. Sex differences are revealed and impact dozens of dating apps, dating websites, dating reality television shows, and relationship coaching. It is the water that flows in nearly all cinema and literature. The difference between the sexes frames conversations about “consent” in heterosexual relationships and fuels the search for an antidote to “toxic masculinity” – and ultimately, the recovery (or creation) of “noble” masculinity that provides much needed servant leadership.

Modest impact? Hardly. Whenever or wherever sexuality is involved (especially heterosexuality) – biological sex differences are salient; the impact on our daily lives is quite significant.

Caveat #4: Average sex differences do not justify the institutionalization of gender inequality.

“There is a fear that biology can be used to prove an intellectual foundation for sexism,” says Reeves. “This is well-founded given our history; it can be used to justify oppression.” Reeves does not elaborate on the historical data points of such oppression. But goes on to emphasize a thought not repeated often enough:

Denying science altogether is not useful. The rather boring truth is that masculine traits are more useful in some contexts and feminine ones in others, and neither set in intrinsically better than the other.

Reeves’s point about the institutionalization of gender inequality is well understood and accepted by credible researchers in sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, biology, and evolutionary psychology. There is no argument here, but the caveat apparently needs to be said, especially given the pernicious nature of our gender-related culture wars.

Caveat #5: Average differences between groups should not influence the view of individuals.

We should not view individuals by assumptions of aggregate difference. This caveat is obvious; it is not disputed among scientists who understand subject sampling, statistical analysis, and the range within the bell curve of individual differences.

Naturalistic and Moralistic Fallacies

Evolutionary psychology has directly addressed the problem of making assumptions about an individual based on data of aggregate difference. Because of general resistance to evolutionary psychology in some social sciences circles, the academic literature emphatically cautions against succumbing to two fallacies of reasoning.

The first is the naturalistic fallacy. This fallacy presumes that everything natural is necessarily good. That is a leap of logic not supported by evolutionary psychologists.

More problematic is the other fallacy lurking around the resistance to evolutionary psychology – the moralistic fallacy. The moralistic fallacy says what is good, or moral, ought to be true and is found in nature. This fallacy is more familiar to the political Left, such as “men and women ought to be given equal opportunities because women and men (in aggregate) can do everything equally well.”

Sex Differences in Brain Development

If, in the name of political correctness, we try to deny the influence of biology on the brain, we begin fighting our own nature. ~ Louann Brizendine (The Female Brain)

Boy’s Brains Develop More Slowly.

Boy’s brains develop more slowly, especially during the most critical years of secondary education. The parts of the brain associated with impulse control, planning, and future orientation are primarily in the prefrontal cortex, which matures about two years later in boys than in girls. As a result, almost one in four boys is categorized as having a “developmental disability,” according to a study in Pediatrics (2017).

Attention and Self-Regulation

The cerebellum reaches full size at age 11 for girls but not until age 15 for boys. The cerebellum has a modulating effect on emotional, cognitive, and regulatory capacities. The most significant difference between boys and girls related to attention and self-regulation occurs during middle adolescence.

Adolescent Male Brains Have More Accelerator and Less Brake

Adolescence is a period when it is harder to restrain ourselves. It is a battle between the sensation-seeking part of the brain (Go to the party! Forget school!) and the impulse-controlling part (I really need to study tonight). “It helps,” says Reeves, “to think of these as the accelerator and brake pedals in a car.” Boys have more acceleration and less braking power.

Adolescent Girls Have More Synapses and Connectivity

“In adolescence, on average, girls are more developed by about 2-3 years in terms of the peak of their brain synapses and their connectivity processes,” says Frances Jensen, chair of the department of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. This is no surprise to most people who know 15-year-old boys and girls.

Gender Gap In Skills and Traits

The gender gap in developing skills and traits most important for academic success is the widest at precisely the time when students need to worry about their GPA, getting ready for tests, and staying out of trouble. According to a 2019 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, “sex differences in associations between brain development and puberty are relevant for understanding prominent gender disparities during adolescence.”

The Biggest Difference is When Development Occurs

“There are certainly some biological-based differences in male and female psychology that last beyond adolescence,” Reeves explains. “But by far, the biggest difference is not how female and male brains develop, but when.”

Nature and Nurture (Culture) on Sexual Psychological Difference

The real debate is not about whether biology matters, but how it does and when it does. ~ Richard Reeves

According to Reeves, culture determines how we manage, channel, and express many natural traits (see Caveat #2 above). As has been said, both nature and nurture determine how biological differences will manifest and express themselves.

Serotonin, Aggression, and Unstable Environment

For example, growing up in a stressful or unstable family environment appears to influence the capacity of the brain to metabolize serotonin. Serotonin helps to reduce aggressive behavior. If a boy or man does not metabolize serotonin effectively, their behavior may be more aggressive.

Boys with “Sensitive Genes” Do Worse When Fathers Leave

Significant research in epigenetics identifies how gene expression can sometimes be turned on or off. Reeves reports that boys with genes sensitive to the environment do worse when their biological fathers leave the household and benefit if their father stays or rejoins the family.

Harvard evolutionary psychologist Joseph Henrich argues that it makes the most sense to think of the co-evolution of nature and nurture. “Culture rewires our brains and alters our biology,” he says, “without altering the underlying genetic code.”

Marriage is a Testosterone Suppression System

Henrich says that marriage is a “testosterone suppression system.” Testosterone levels are highest among young single men, and those with higher testosterone are more likely to become fathers. But testosterone levels fall among men who settle down with a wife and children, and the drops are sharpest among men who do more childcare. “Human males have an evolved neuroendocrine architecture shaped to facilitate their role as fathers and caregivers as a key component to reproductive success,” says Henrich.

The Nice Guy – Bad Boy Trade-off

Falling testosterone levels mean that a caregiving “nice guy” (wanted and yet not wanted by many women) has less “bad-boy power” at the neuroendocrine level. Given the common problem of “hedonic adaptation”** or boredom inside a monogamous partnership, it is doubly hard for “nice” husbands and boyfriends to compete with fantasies about “bad boys” outside the pair bond. Luckily, one might say, it is good that women tend to turn down their (already lower) sexual interest when in monogamous partnerships.

No Wonder Married with Children Means Less Sex

Directing the energy required to raise children often has the practical effect of reducing female sexual desire. When you match that with lessened male testosterone, it is no surprise that many married couples with children have a diminished sex life. Lower testosterone and mutually reduced sex drive may not be a bad thing; it may be an evolutionary adaptation for successful caregiving and parenting.

Nature and Nurture Interdependence – Proximate or Ultimate Causation?

As outlined in my previous writing and summarized by experts in evolutionary psychology and sexual selection, the issue here is about identifying proximate causes for human (or animal) behavior versus ultimate causes. Proximate causes are influences from the current environment and culture. Ultimate causes are the result of thousands of years of human adaptation.

Survival and sexual reproduction operate almost entirely by ultimate causation. That is the starting point, the infrastructure, for any exception or adaptive readjustment that may come from the current environment or culture.

There Are Limits to Evolution as a Function of Culture

There is evidence of epigenetics — the effect of environmental factors on gene expression. Cultures do indeed change, and cultures can determine how some elements of masculinity and femininity are expressed.

But, as some anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists have said, there are limits to the evolution of human behavior as a function of culture. Humans are never going to grow wings and fly around the sky.

Can We Evolve Beyond Sex for Protection and Resources?

How quickly can we evolve from a “sex traded for protection and resources” (safety and security) paradigm? Perhaps we are doing that right now… but sexual desire operates with ancient hormonal roots and physiological signals of fertility. Don’t hold your breath for this evolutionary change. Biological differences between the sexes have been around for a long time.

*The Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) is a model of human development that assumes the mind was shaped primarily, if not entirely, by culture and social conditioning. SSSM is often associated with the concepts of “blank slate,” social constructivism, or cultural determinism that have dominated the social sciences throughout the 20th century (especially in the U.S.).

**Hedonic adaptation is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to stable levels of happiness despite positive or adverse events. In a romantic context, it means that humans might “get used to” their partner and not sustain initial levels of excitement and passion over time.

 

In Of Boys and Men, Richard Reeves provides solutions to address the male malaise in education, work, training, childcare, legal support, and policy inequities. The prior post (Solutions to the Crisis of Boys and Men – Part 4.1) described the first five solutions. This post covers solutions six through fourteen.

With these broad proposals, Reeves addresses counterarguments and related funding issues but does not attempt to navigate the complex politics needed for execution. Nevertheless, these are important solutions – a roadmap to consider.

6. Redesign jobs to be fairer for women

Reeves advocates for more jobs to be designed with time and place flexibility – jobs that are part-time and from home. He says we need to modernize career ladders away from “greedy” jobs that reward long and interrupted hours. Greedy jobs are in law, finance, and management consulting. Pharmacy is an example of an egalitarian career. There is almost no hourly wage penalty for part-time work in a pharmacy. Thus, there is virtually no gender pay gap because women do not pay the “parenting penalty” — a primary cause of the aggregate pay gap. (For more details on the pay gap, see upcoming Part 6: Pay Gap, STEM Careers and Gender Equality Paradox.)

However, Reeves provides this caution:

As long as men continue to be willing to put in long and often unpredictable hours, the prospects for structural reform remain dim.

And men will continue to work these hours because the prize is sexual access to women. “Greedy” jobs pay dividends for men in the mating marketplace. This is “undiscussable” — the elephant in the room. Reeves “politely” avoids talking about this elephant.

7. Provide more access to childcare and provision for after-school clubs

Men, women, and children are all bending their lives and schedules to fit the largely unilateral demands of the standard workday and typical career path. ~ Richard Reeves

The family has changed, but the labor market has not changed in response. Reeves supports efforts to increase childcare and provide after-school clubs. He worries that current public policy seeks to create work-friendly families rather than family-friendly work.

Our Work and Care Structures Are Relics

“We’ve reached an unprecedented era of equality between men and women economically,” writes Claudia Goldin, “but our work and care structures are relics of a past when only men both had careers and families.” (Goldin is a Harvard economist who explodes the myth of an aggregate pay gap caused by discrimination. See Part 6.)

“Mothers are caught most painfully in this trap right now,” asserts Reeves. But fathers are not necessarily okay with the tradeoff. Twice as many fathers as mothers say they spend too little time with their children (46% v. 23%), according to a 2013 report by the Pew Research Center.

Reeves’ proposals for paid leave (see below) are a step toward lessening this “pain,” but jobs must change too. “More options to work flexibly, or part-time, or from home, can at least ease the tradeoffs between earning and caring,” Reeves explains.

8. Provide six months of paid leave for each child

Mothers and fathers should be entitled to six months of paid leave for each child. Ideally, this would offer 100% wage replacement up to median earnings, paid for by higher social security contributions from employers and employees. This proposal follows the work of scholars of Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers in their 2009 essay “Institutions That Support Gender Equality in Parenthood and Employment.” They aimed to create a set of institutions allowing parents to spend real time caring for children while promoting gender equality. Gornick and Meyers envisioned a “dual-earner/dual caregiver” society, including symmetrical contributions from mothers and fathers. According to Reeves, six months of leave is necessary to allow parents to spend meaningful time with their children without losing connection to the labor market.

Choosing to Stay Home in the Early years

The labor market is still structured in favor of workers without childcare responsibilities, and those workers are primarily men. Even with access to paid leave, it is likely that mothers will choose to do more of the care in the very early years. After the vast rise in women’s employment over recent decades, most mothers with children under 3 are either out of the labor market or working part-time. By and large, this seems to be by choice; over half of the mothers working part-time (54%) say that this is their preference at this point in their life, and 14% say they would prefer not to be in a full-time job at all. The remaining 33% say they would rather be in a full-time job.

9. Reform schools to be fairer for boys

Reeves advocates that boys be held back a year (“redshirted”) from elementary school so their brain development is more amenable to the school environment. He is emphatic that male teachers are needed as role models and warns about the over-identification of boys as disruptive or learning disabled. However, Reeves falls short of describing how elementary school curriculum might be tailored or the classroom “architecture” and activities could be improved for boys. He probably knows but left that out of the book.

10. Reinvent fatherhood

The role of fathers needs to expand to include caring as well as breadwinning. ~Richard Reeves

Within six years of their parents separating, one in three children never sees their father, and a similar proportion sees him once a month or less. The social institution of fatherhood urgently needs an update to become more focused on direct relationships with children.

Culture and policy are stuck on an obsolete model of fatherhood, lagging way behind economic reality. This results in a “dad deficit.”

“Rather than looking in the rear-view mirror,” says Reeves, “we need to establish a new basis for fatherhood, one that embraces the huge progress we have made toward gender equality.”

11. Protect unmarried fathers related to custody

There are no joint custody laws for unmarried parents. That needs to change, asserts Reeves.

In every U.S. state, an unmarried mother is presumed to be the sole custodial parent.

Unmarried fathers must prove paternity and then petition for visitation and custody. For many fathers, this is a daunting process. In the meantime, a mother can bar all access to the child.

As Kathyrn Edin and Timothy Nelson posit in Doing the Best I Can, “at every turn, an unmarried man who seeks to be a father, not just a daddy, is rebuffed by a system that pushes him aside with one hand while reaching into his pocket with the other.”

12. Consider a father’s ability to pay child support and nonmonetary contributions

Regardless of visitation rights, unmarried fathers are typically obliged to pay child support, often at levels that low-income fathers struggle to meet. Unmarried fathers are seen as walking ATMs. In 2020, $38 billion was collected in child support, and $115 billion was owed in arrears.

Child support payments should be set with greater sensitivity to a father’s ability to pay and consider their nonmonetary contributions, including direct provision of care for their children. “If we truly believe in gender equity,” write Edin and Nelson, “we must find a way to honor fathers’ attempts to build relationships with their children just as we do mothers’ – to assign father rights along with their responsibilities.”

13. Establish an Office of Men’s Health in the Department of Health and Human Services

An HHS Office on Women’s Health already exists, and a similar one should be created for men.

14. Establish a national coalition for men and boys in education

A 2017 report by the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education recommended financial incentives to boost the number of female trainees in male-oriented careers and technical education. The report acknowledged that men might be discouraged from taking “nontraditional” courses in high-growth, high-wage fields such as nursing and paralegal work. But where are the financial incentives to boost male participation in “female-oriented” careers? Low participation by men in “nontraditional” courses has no organizational attention; there is no such organization for men. 

Reeves advocates that a coalition for men and boys be established similar to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education to address HEAL job preparation and vocational training and one similar to the National Girls Collaborative Project that promotes gender equity in STEM education.

In Part 3.1 of this series, I summarized what Richard Reeves believes the political Left gets wrong about the crisis facing boys and men. In this post, I will summarize what Reeves asserts the political Right gets wrong, as outlined in his book, Of Boys and Men, Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.

There Are Three Weaknesses to the Conservative Approach

Conservatives have paid more attention than progressives to the growing problems faced by boys and men. But their agenda turns out to be equally unhelpful. According to Reeves, there are three weaknesses in their approach.

1. The Right fuels male grievance for political gain.

Donald Trump secured the presidency in 2016 with a 24-point lead among men, the widest gender gap in the half-century history of exit polling. Trump’s margin was 30 points for white men – 62% to 32%.

When Trump said it was “a very scary time for young men in America” (speech in 2018), he was scorned by progressives, but it likely resonated with many men and at least some parents.

Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri gave a speech (November 2021) to the National Conservatism Conference declaring that “the attack on men has been the tip of the spear of the Left’s broader attack on America.” This hyperbole is neither accurate nor helpful.

But it should be noted: right-wing extremism and anti-feminist sentiments are a global problem. Reeves cites examples in Sweden, Germany, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and the Philippines.

Populist Anger Is Also About Gender

The anger fueling populism is about all kinds of things – demographic changes, secularization, trade, labor market shocks, and more. But it is also about gender.

A third of men of all political persuasions in the U.S. believe they are discriminated against, and the number is rising among Republicans.

Reeves says this is wrong: “while the problems of boys and men are real, they are the result of structural changes in the economy and the broader culture and the failings of our education system, rather than discrimination.” This claim seems like a bit of a half-truth. Reeves has detailed distinct biases against boys and men on many fronts: “changes in the broader culture” (as he asserts) allow for many embedded biases that may undergird real discrimination.

“Rear-Guard Machismo”

Nonetheless, the rise of what author Pankaj Mishra called “rear-guard machismo” (“The Crisis in Modern Masculinity,” The Guardian, March 2018) is being used by the political Right to fuel grievance and find a populist base of male voters. This narrative is wrong for identifying the problems of boys and men and for finding real solutions.

2. The Right gives too much importance to biological sex differences.

This is the mirror image of the progressive tendency to dismiss biological sex differences altogether, says Reeves. But Reeves’s argument here is not strong. He is in the “land of false equivalency.”

The more fervently the Left denies any innate sex differences, the more strongly many on the Right feel the need to insist on their importance.  ~ Richard Reeves

There is probably some truth to that.

The Case of Jordan Peterson

Reeves go after Jordan Peterson to present a case that conservatives put too much emphasis on biology. Peterson claims that social hierarchies are part of the natural order — that mammals are wired to know their place. Reeves says the science for this is not very good, but he does not defend this position with any references. I do not trust Reeves’ opinion on this.

Evolutionary Science Is a Provocation to the Left’s Narrative

Peterson is well-grounded in evolutionary science, even though he can be somewhat abrasive and provocative — at least, that is the label applied to him by those resisting his views. However, watching the “interviews” with Peterson by Left-wing pundits in England, you can see how he is attacked (sometimes two against one) and interrupted. His arguments are dismissed and deflected as if the interviewer did not hear them. There is even one example of an interview with Peterson that has been made into an instructional video addressing fallacious reasoning and vicious rhetorical assaults.

Sometimes Provocation Is Needed

Sometimes provocation is needed. Reeves’s entire book — declaring and further revealing the boys and men crisis, is a provocation to the feminist political framework – more so than his reprimand of the political Right.

Reeves Agrees with Peterson – Aggregate Personality Sex Differences

Peterson points out (as reported by Reeves) that women are more agreeable and conscientious than men, more into people, and more nurturing. Men are more aggressive, status-conscious, and driven by sex, Peterson says. And then Reeves admits this is all true! Peterson is correct, and Reeves agrees.

On Occupational Choice (also See Part 6 on the Pay Gap)

On the issue of occupational choice, Reeves says “Petersonian” conservatives overstate the strength of natural gender preferences. But Reeves has already outlined and made a case (in other sections of the book) for gender-specific differences in aggregate preferences.

Just Too Thin?

Reeves says, in summary, “that conservatives justify gender preference inequalities with biological explanations that are not wrong, just too thin, adding “conservative arguments for the importance of biology in human behavior seem more reasonable when their opponents deny their existence altogether.” Amen to that. But one might say it is Reeves’s argument on this topic that is “just too thin,” or a bit of veiled political cover.

The Left Is More Wrong Than the Right

Maybe the Right does give too much importance to biological differences. But the need for proportionality and the problem of false equivalency seems evident here.
The Left is more wrong than the Right on this particular issue.

3. The Right sees the solution to men’s problems as lying in the past.

Rather than envisioning a different future for men and their families, the Right sees the solutions to men’s problems as lying in the past, sometimes in traditional economic relations between male providers and female caregivers. Rather than help men adapt to the new world, conservatives seduce them with promises of the old. This is a significant error in framing the boys and men crisis and exacerbates the problem of male grievance.

Make America Great Again?

Trump’s appeal was a nostalgic one: “Make America Great Again.” Most of his voters believed that life had gotten worse since the 1950s and that gender had played an important role. Traditional ideas of femininity and masculinity are implicit in the invocation of the past.

Men As Outlaws or Exiles

As described in Part 2.2 of this series, many men are leading haphazard and lonely lives. They are demoralized, unmarriageable, and have lost their hopes and aspirations. They feel dispensable for a good reason.

As early as 1992, George Gilder (Men and Marriage) argued that feminism would render men redundant. “Once women can be both providers and procreators, the need for marriage to a man would decline, leaving them either outlaws or exiles.” This statement was quite prescient.

Unlike Women, Men Have No Role Inscribed in their Bodies

“Unlike a woman, (cautioned Gilder) a man has no civilized role or agenda inscribed in his body. The man’s role in the family is thus reversible; the woman’s role is unimpeachable and continues if the man departs. A man without a woman has a deep inner sense of dispensability.”

Not Helpful to Resist Women’s Progress

Conservatives are not helping men adapt to the new world of equality by encouraging them to resist women’s progress.

In 1958 (speaking of prescient), Arthur Schlesinger wrote in an essay titled, The Crisis of American Masculinity, that “the key to the recovery of masculinity does not lie in any wistful hope of humiliating the aggressive female and restoring old masculine supremacy.” If that was true in 1958, it is more dramatically true today.

Flaws of Patriarchy for Both Sexes

Feminism has upended patriarchy, a specific social order that had the fatal flaw of being grossly unequal, says Reeves. I will leave the definition of patriarchy to another day. Still, it is essential to note that men’s freedom has often been stifled by patriarchy — with tightly prescribed roles and oppressive expectations.

Help Men Without Hindering Women

Men do need help. But we can help men without hindering women or trying to turn back the clock. Fatherhood, in particular, should be reinvented for a more egalitarian world. (See upcoming Part 4.2 of this series.)

Conclusion: The Right’s Agenda is Equally Unhelpful

Conservatives have paid more attention to the growing problems faced by boys and men. But their agenda turns out to be equally unhelpful.

 

The Left tells men to be more like their sisters. The Right says to be more like your father. Neither invocation is helpful.   ~ Richard Reeves

Prior posts in this series, Parts 2.1 and 2.2, described the eleven problems and conditions faced by boys and men identified by Richard Reeves in Of Boys and Men.  In addition, Richard Reeves courageously calls out the misguided narratives espoused by the political Left and Right in naming and framing the boys and men’s crisis. These narratives are an overriding 12th problem.

Let’s first address what the Left gets wrong about boys and men in this fourth post of the series.

1. The Left tends to pathologize masculinity.

The Left tends to denigrate masculinity, often under the banner of “toxic.”  “Toxic masculinity” is rarely defined.  In current use, it signals disdain for any male behavior that the user disapproves of.  A toxic male may be blamed for everything – mass shootings, online trolling, Brexit, and refusing to wear a mask during the pandemic.

According to sociologist Carol Harrington, the phrase “toxic masculinity” was used in no more than 20 scholarly articles until around 2015; but by 2017, there were thousands of mentions of “toxic masculinity,” mainly in the mainstream media.

Reeves and other researchers (psychologists and sociologists) of American culture believe “toxic masculinity” is a counterproductive term.

It is a bad idea to send a cultural signal to half of the population that there may be something intrinsically wrong with them. ~ Richard Reeves

What does the General Public Think?

Harrington reports that nine in ten men and women describe themselves as either “completely” or “mostly” masculine or feminine.*

Fifty percent of American men and 30% of American women now think society punishes men for just acting like men (3 in 5 Republicans and about 1 in 4 Democrats – a significant difference along partisan lines).

Fewer than a third of American women now describe themselves as a feminist. But in a survey (2019) that appeared in Ipsos, 48% of Democratic women adopted the feminist label compared to just 13% of Republican women.

In a 2018 YouGov poll of women who did not identify as feminists, 48% of those women said feminists were too extreme, 47% said [current] feminism does not represent true feminism, and 24% said feminists are anti-men.

Bottomline:

Masculinity is not a pathology; it is quite literally a fact of life. ~ Richard Reeves

2. The Left sees the causes of the crisis as individual and not structural.

Pundits on the political Left couch male problems as individual failings of one kind or another, rather than a result of structural challenges.

“The problems of boys and men are structural in nature, rather than individual, but are rarely treated as such,” according to Reeves. The problem with men is typically framed as a problem of men. Men should be fixed, one man or boy at a time. Harrington says the term “toxic masculinity” focuses attention on the character flaws of individual men rather than structural problems.

For those on the political Left, victim-blaming is permitted when it comes to men.  ~ Richard Reeves

Individualist Approach is Wrong

This individualist approach is wrong.  Boys are falling behind in school and college because the educational system is structured in a way that puts them at a disadvantage.

Men struggle in the labor market because of an economic shift away from traditionally male jobs.

And fathers are dislocated because the cultural role of provider has been hollowed out.

The male malaise is not the result of a mass psychological breakdown but of deep structural challenges. ~Richard Reeves

Men’s Covid Deaths Are Their Own Fault

Globally, men were about 50% more likely to die from Covid. For every 100 deaths among women aged 45-64, there were 184 male deaths. Yet, the higher rate of male deaths received little or no attention from health institutions and the media.  When it was acknowledged, the explanations were that men had preexisting health conditions related to lifestyle factors or were less responsible concerning safety measures.

In short, men’s covid deaths were their own fault. Reeves says this is not true.

The gap in mortality is not explained by sex differences in infection rates or preexisting conditions,

The Difference in Covid Deaths is Biological and Genetic

The difference in Covid deaths between men and women is caused by biology and genetics.  A person with XX vs. XY chromosomes has more functional immunity because of the extra X.  I reported this in my post (April 7, 2020), Why More Men Than Women Die of Covid-19. 

More Gender-Specific Medicine

Reeves advocates for more gender-specific medicine. Marianne Legato (head of the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University) says, “it is now time to focus on the unique problems of men just the way we have learned to do with women.”**

Reeves says a good step would be to establish an Office of Men’s Health in the Department of Health and Human Services to mirror the existing one for women.

3. The Left is unwilling to acknowledge biological sex differences.

Many conservatives deny the environmental science of climate change.  But many progressives deny the neurosciences of sex differences.  ~ Richard Reeves

This is HUGE

For many progressives, it is now axiomatic that sex differences or behaviors are wholly the results of socialization.  When it comes to masculinity, the main message from the political Left is that men are acculturated into specific ways of behaving (generally bad ways in this version), which can therefore be socialized out of them. But this is simply false. For instance:

Men do not have a higher sex drive because society overly “values” male sexuality.    They have a higher sex drive because they have more testosterone.  ~ Richard Reeves

Women Are Wonderful Effect

There is some evidence that people are more comfortable with the idea of natural differences if women come out ahead in the comparison. In recent years, most scientists identifying natural differences have, if anything, tended to stress the superiority of women. Researchers Alice Eagly and Antonio Mladinic call this the “WoW” (women are wonderful) effect.  Reeves says this approach allows for a discussion of biological differences, but in a way that underlies the pathologies of men and allows a warmer reception among liberal scholars and reviewers.

This is the most dangerous message of all: men are naturally different than women, but only in ways that are bad. ~ Richard Reeves 

Brain Development and Testosterone – Females and Males Are Not the Same

More detail about biological differences between the sexes noted by Reeves will be addressed in Parts 5.1 and 5.2 of this series (upcoming), including:

• Brain development of boys vs. girls and its impact on impulse control, planning, and future orientation — including attention and self-regulation during middle adolescence.
• The tremendous influence of testosterone on aggression, risk-taking, and sex “drive.” Women and men do not have a similar sex drive and it makes perfect evolutionary sense for sexual selection.
• The interplay of nature and nurture and how differences can be magnified or muted by culture.

4. The Left believes that gender inequality only disadvantages women.

The Left believes that gender inequality can only run in one direction – to the disadvantage of women – ignoring disadvantages to men.

The dominant narrative of gender equality is framed almost exclusively in terms of the disadvantages of girls and women. ~ Richard Reeves

Reeves suggests that “our policies are now so poisoned that it has become almost impossible for people on the Left to even discuss the problems of boys and men, let alone devise solutions.”

Policy Bias Against Men***

• In October 2021, the White House Gender Policy Council published a National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality. But no gender inequalities related to boys or men were addressed.  The mission statement of the Policy Council clearly states a policy focus that impacts only women and girls.
• The Council’s report did not mention how women outnumber men in college, except regarding female student debt. There was no mention of the sizable gender gaps in favor of girls in K-12 education.  Regarding discipline, there was no mention of the specific challenges of Black boys, even though they are twice as likely as Black girls to be suspended or expelled.
• White House Covid policy and nearly every think tank and international organization emphasized the negative implications of the pandemic for women while ignoring those for men. The higher risk of death from Covid-19 for men was hardly mentioned.
• The World Economic Forum also describes gender inequality in only one direction based on their methodology. Reeves reports that “no account is taken of domains where women are doing better than men.”

Gender Inequalities Run in Both Directions

The fight for gender equality has historically been synonymous with the battle for and by girls and women, and for a good reason.  But, says Reeves:

“We have reached a point where gender inequalities affecting boys and men have to be treated seriously. Many people on the political Left seem to fear that even acknowledging the problems of boys and men will somehow weaken efforts for women and girls. This is entirely false as a matter of practice and creates a dangerous political dynamic.”

This fear seems difficult for social science academics and the average feminist or “progressive” woman to overcome.  The women who most confront this fear or acknowledge that gender inequalities run in both directions have raised boys.

*Carol Harrington, “What is Toxic Masculinity and Why does it Matter?” Men and Masculinities (July 2020).

 **There are claims from some women’s advocates that medical research and some services (e.g., urological sexual health) have been more focused on men rather than women.  Reeves does not address this. The issue of gender-specific medicine (or the lack thereof) may have multiple threads of truth.  But Legato is the expert in this arena.

***This section mostly repeats Problem #11, “Professional and Academic Bias Against Men” in Problems and Conditions of Boys and Men – Part 2.2 of this series.)

 

.Boys and men are struggling in the U.S. and across the globe. Part 2.1 of this series described the first six problems and conditions for boys and men identified by Richard Reeves in his book, Of Boys and Men – Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it. This post describes problems 7-11.

7. Demoralization of men – an aspiration gap and a fading ideal

Something in modern culture is producing an aspiration gap between men and women. Many men just seem less ambitious. College women are roughly twice as likely to enroll in study abroad programs as college men. In 2020, amid Covid, the decline in college enrollment for male students was seven times that of female students. As Reeves puts it: “It is not that men have fewer opportunities. It is that they are not taking them.”

Many men seek a fading or obsolete ideal: being a man means being the primary breadwinner for their family (see problems #9 and #10 below). Columnist and author David Brooks: “I come away with the impression that many men are like what Dean Acheson said about Britain after World War II. They have lost an empire but have not yet found a role. They can’t meet the ideal, so demoralization follows.”

Still Searching for a Modern Masculine Ideal

Ambition doesn’t just happen; it must be ignited. The culture is searching for a new, modern masculine ideal, but it is not instilling in many boys the nurturing and emotional skills that may be needed for that search – or needed to thrive as a human being. A system that labels more than a fifth of all boys as developmentally disabled is not giving them a sense of confidence and competence.

8. More men are leading haphazard and lonely lives.

• Roughly 15 percent of men say they have no close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990.
• One in five fathers doesn’t live with his children.
• In 2014, more young men lived with their parents than their wives or partners.
• Wives are twice as likely to initiate divorces as husbands.
• “A large and growing cohort of bored, lonely, poorly educated men is a malevolent force in any society, but it is truly terrifying one in a society addicted to social media and awash in coarseness and guns.” (Scott Galloway, 2022) Radical right-wing politicians “speak” to men who have lost income and dignity.

Hikikomori – Men with Severe Social Withdrawal

An extreme situation of “lonely men” are young men who retreat from society altogether. In Japan, there is a rising number of hikikomori (male shut-ins) – some of whom have been living in one room for years. These men have “severe social withdrawal.” Japanese authorities estimate there are over a half million of these modern-day hermits. Japan is not alone. An organization to work with Italian hikikomori has been established.

Researcher Alan Teo (Oregon Health and Science University) believes many men are on the hikikomori spectrum in this country. “We have a large number of people [men] in the U.S. in their early 20s living in a basement bedroom,” he says. “They are struggling with work, struggling to launch, and may be stuck in an earlier developmental stage.”

Manhood is Fragile

Manhood is defined more by social construction than womanhood, which is why manhood tends to be more fragile than femininity. Womanhood is defined more by biology (reproduction). When was the last “crisis of femininity?” Never. In his book On Men: Masculinity in Crisis (2001), Anthony Clare said, “I learned very early on that what a man does is more important than who he is.”

Manhood Must Be Continuously Won

Manhood is a continuous achievement rather than a single milestone. In many cultures, rites of initiation, often involving physical duress or risk – have marked the transition from a boy to a man. American poet Leonard Kriegel: “In every age, not just our own, manhood was something that had to be won.”

9. Men are unmarriageable

With the rise in female earning power, men need to clear a higher bar to be seen as husband material. Women are more likely to go it alone than partner with a man who is in a weak economic position. In a 2017 survey, 71% of American women said it’s “very important” for a man to support his family financially, and only 25% of men said the same about a woman.

Marriage Rates in Decline

Marriage rates have been on the decline for decades, as reported by Scott Galloway in “A Few(er) Good Men,” October 1, 2021. The sharpest decline has been among poor men. Between 1970 and 2011, the marriage rate for the lowest-earning quartile of men fell by nearly 35%, while the highest quartile fell by less than 15%.

College, Earnings, and Being Acceptable to Women

With fewer men in college, fewer men are acceptable to women as potential mates.

According to David Autor and Melanie Wasserman, the falling earnings power of noncollege males is one reason for their falling marriage rates.

The marriage rate of men aged 40-44 with a high school education or less dropped by more than 20% over the past 40 years, compared to 6% for those with a college education.

Wife Earning More than Husband Explains Marriage Decline

Researcher Marianne Bertrand and her team found that “the aversion to having the wife earn more than the husband explains 29% of the decline of the marriage rate over the last thirty years” (Bertrand et al., “Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2015).

But Marriage Rates Are More Stable for the Affluent

Marriage data show that women who have achieved the most significant degree of economic independence, with high levels of education and earning potential, are the most likely to get married and stay married. Reeves says that is because they select and marry high-achieving men “who clear the bar” of acceptability.

Women with the highest-earning husbands were most likely to take time off the labor market. These women often choose to stay home with children because their husbands provide the resources, thus revealing their instinctual preferences (and necessity) for caretaking.

Men Are Not Chosen for their Willingness to Stay Home

“With high and rising earnings, college-educated men have remained attractive marital prospects, even for women flourishing in the labor market. These men have not, by and large, become stay-at-home dads,” Reeves observes. These men were not chosen for their capacity or willingness to stay at home. Women who are flourishing in the market choose men who are succeeding just as much, or preferably more.

How Many Women Will Choose This Kind of Man?

How many women will freely choose

• a man who makes less money than them or no money at all, or
• a man who prefers to stay at home with the children?

How many women are choosing that kind of man over a powerful breadwinner at the upper end of the socioeconomic hierarchy? It is irrefutable: high-mate-value women will choose high-mate-value men.

The Erotic-Economic Bargain Throughout History

Gaining sexual access in exchange for the provision of resources is the erotic-economic bargain that has been the infrastructure of mate selection between men and women for thousands of years. With the rise of women’s financial independence and men’s loss of resources, the bargain has become strained under new terms by women; it is seen as an increasingly worse bargain for them. Fewer resources from men equate to less sexual access to women and less marriage.

In sum, women mate (socioeconomically) horizontally and up, and men mate horizontally and down. ~ Richard Reeves

Has Marriage “Worked?”

Reeves asserts that conservatives believe the dependent relationship between husbands and wives is precisely what makes a marriage work as an institution – that marriage is a mechanism for harnessing male energy for positive social ends.

While Reeves acknowledges that marriage has “worked” (more or less) as an institution, he understands how feminists see marriage as an oppressive institution that curtails women’s autonomy. A “dependent” marriage is not a viable future.

High-investment Parenting Marriages (HIP)

Reeves observes that educated Americans have transformed marriage from an institution of economic dependency into a joint venture for the purpose of parenting. Marriage serves primarily as a commitment device for shared investments of time and money in children. He calls these high-investment parenting marriages (HIP). (Richard Reeves, “How to Save Marriage in America,” Atlantic, February 2014).

Are HIP marriages a viable future? What if you do not have or want children? And ultimately, what do we do with the great number of unmarriageable men?

10. Breadwinning and providing have been severely damaged.

The idea of the provider is a major element in the construction of a masculine identity. It is a moral as well as an economic category. ~ David Morgan, Sociologist

Traditional Role Is Dismantled – What’s Next?

Male “breadwinning” and marriageability are directly connected, as described above. But the damage to “man-as-provider” is severe, especially psychologically; it deserves a separate problem category inside the boys and men crisis.

The male role has long been culturally defined as that of provider and based on the economic dependence of mothers on men. This traditional role has been dismantled by the securing of financial independence by women. Men are increasingly unable to fulfill the traditional breadwinner role and do not have a new role to embrace (the “demoralization”).

Husband-as-Breadwinner Expectation Still Persists

Husbands without jobs are at much higher risk of seeing the end of their marriage today than in the past. According to work from Alexandra Killewald, as reported in American Sociological Review:

Expectations of wives’ homemaking may have eroded, but the husband-as-breadwinner norm persists.

To Be a Good Husband, He Must Provide

A study by the Pew Research Center found that 84% of Blacks said that to be a good husband, it is “very important” for a man to be able to provide for his family. Sixty-seven (67%) percent of white respondents agreed.

According to research by David Morgan, four out of five American adults (81%) with a high school education or less still believe that “for a man to be a good husband or partner, being able to support a family financially is very important,” compared to 62% of those with a bachelor’s degree. But what do the women of that 62% believe, and how do they act in the mating market?

Psychological Damage: No Romance, No Sex, No purpose

You cannot unpack the influence of men as providers from the dynamics of mate selection. When men can no longer fulfill the provider role, they are left on the sidelines of romance and sex. General malaise, opioid abuse, suicide, and violence – “deaths of despair” become a plague on the “land of men.” Economically-disadvantaged men do worse in all aspects of life. Their identity, existential purpose, and sexuality are at stake. This is not true for girls and women.

Critical Difference Between Men and Women Left Unsaid

Reeves does not sufficiently emphasize this difference in psychological consequences between men and women. He does not explicitly connect the dots about mate selection, even though it stares him in the face from all the studies he cites. This “undiscussable” was a bridge too far for him; he already was combating flak from the political Left for even writing this book.

11. Professional and academic bias against men

In 2021, President Biden created the White House Gender Policy Council, a successor to the previous Council on Women and Girls, which Donald Trump had abolished. The charge of the new Council is “to guide and coordinate government policy that impacts women and girls.”

But Gender Policy Council Ignored Impact on Boys and Men

In October 2021, the Council published a National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, but no gender inequalities related to boys or men were addressed.

• There was no mention of how women outnumber men in college, except regarding female student debt.
• There was no mention of the sizable gender gaps in favor of girls in K-12 education.
• There was no mention of the specific challenges of Black boys, even though they are twice as likely as Black girls to be suspended or expelled.

White House Covid Policy Was No Better

White House Covid policy (and most international think tanks) emphasized the pandemic’s negative implications for women and ignored those for men. “The main gender story has been the catastrophic effect on women’s progress,” observes Reeves. Yet, men die at much higher rates than women, even after co-morbidities are accounted for. (See Why More Men Than Women Die of Covid-19.)

More Professional Bias Reported by Reeves

Reeves also reports and explains how the World Economic Forum described gender inequality in only one direction based on their methodology.

But more egregious:

APA Guidelines Do Not Reference any Positive Aspects of Masculinity

The American Psychological Association (APA) in 2018 said: “traditional masculinity was marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression; and is on the whole harmful.”

The APA came under attack from conservative critics, and the APA tweeted that “the guidelines support encouraging positive aspects of traditional masculinity such as courage and leadership.” According to Reeves, this was false. The APA guidelines did not contain a single reference to these positive aspects of masculinity.

APA Guidelines Did Not Recognize Biological Basis for Male Psychology

The guidelines also failed to recognize any biological basis for male psychology.

• Testosterone is not mentioned. As far as the APA is concerned, says Reeves, masculinity is entirely socially constructed. By the time a man reaches adulthood, the report says, “a man will tend to demonstrate behaviors prescribed by his ethnicity, culture, and different constructions of masculinity.”*
• The APA’s complete absence of biology in this report contrasts with the association’s equivalent report on girls and women, which discussed the potential psychological implications of puberty, childbirth, and menopause.

MacArthur Foundation is Another Example of Bias

Reeves says the MacArthur Foundation has a “science aversion” regarding sex and biology. They issued a 47-page report on the latest science of adolescent development for juvenile justice. Despite the enormous differences between teenage girls and boys related to risk-taking and aggression, the report did not make a single reference to sex or gender. Reeves laments: “the fear of sex determinism seems to have led to an unwillingness to engage with, or even acknowledge, the evidence for natural influences on behavior.”

*There is near complete adherence to social constructivist theory asserted by many on the political and academic Left. Manhood may be more defined and “earned” as a social construction, but masculinity is also a biological fact; it just does not rise to the level of female reproduction as a source of purpose and meaning.