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The Problems Men and Boys are Facing are Large and Growing
How are things faring in the United States for men and women? Well, if you listen to the popular talk shows and media in general, you will probably believe that men are still far ahead in the race for educational attainment, career achievement, and just about everything else. But reality paints a far different picture and these facts about the problems faced by the males among us is covered in the pages of this book, Of Boys and Men.Possibly the most glaring problem right now, and the one that gets talked about the most in this book, is the differences between boys and girls in school. Educational attainment gaps are obvious and growing, and yet this gets almost no coverage in the media. Women have higher graduation rates, both from high school and college and they consistently perform better in school overall. Women receive the bulk of the bachelor’s degrees. Women rank higher overall in their respective high school and college classes. The data backs this up, and this book includes lots of statistical data to back its claims.Besides the problems with academic achievement, men face many other problems. Depression is one, and the too frequent result of suicide is another. Male deaths from COVID far outnumber female deaths from COVID. Men still have a great deal of pressure to be the primary economic provider for their families, yet wages have not kept up with inflation. These, and other problems, continue to mount year after year and yet they receive almost no talk in Washington or from politicians in general. And when they do talk, we get the usual polarized, partisan responses from both sides that do nothing to address the problem.I like that this book includes so many statistics to back its claims and I like the explanations of things like the wage gap between men and women, as they more clearly show that the 82 cents earned by women for every dollar that men earn is misleading and is deliberately used by some politicians to deceive. I also like that the book includes proposed solutions, like holding off on starting school for boys for an additional year so that they have more time to develop. It might, in fact, be a good idea to start everyone off in school one year later. The cost for things like additional child care and having government help cover the expense will be the subject of much debate, but I like that the book at least offers potential solutions.This book is a real eye- opener for everyone and the backup for its claims is solid and indisputable. There is much more that the book could have discussed, like the general lack of motivation of boys compared to the past and what forces, exactly, have caused this problem. It is true that development takes a little longer with most boys, but this was also true forty years ago when I was a young student, and we didn’t have these vast differences in educational attainment between boys and girls. There must be more to the problem, and it warrants more research.Reading a book like Of Boys and Men reveals many facts for which most of the public is completely unaware. The book emphasizes again and again that aiding one group doesn’t mean we are taking away from another. It is not a zero-sum game. We can have initiatives that aid boys and have initiatives that aid girls. Whatever the solution, we need to do something before it is too late. We live in a completely different world than in the past and the problems men and boys face require swift responses from our leaders. Of Boys and Men paints a not- so- pretty picture, but things can be improved if we have the courage to put our political differences aside and make a change for the better.
Top reviews from other countries
Iain Shepherd
Very balanced. Criticises left for ignoring issues and right for wanting to go back in time.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 7, 2023
David Reekie
A new masculinity is needed
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 19, 2022David Maywald
This book will move the gender debate forwards - a must read
Reviewed in Australia on November 3, 2022
David Maywald
Reviewed in Australia on November 3, 2022
This is a fraught topic that pushes against popular narratives, it challenges both sides of the political spectrum, but it is a topic that desperately deserves policy action. As a father of a son and a daughter, I deeply care about the opportunities that are available to both of them. And I recognise that they have biological gender differences that require tailored approaches for developing their unique talents (for example, boys tend to be more aggressive, boys tend to have more interest in things, while girls tend to have more interest in people – men and women obviously overlap on many dimensions but there are measurable and pronounced gender differences)… I devoured the 180 pages in less than twelve hours following the Amazon delivery of this book. It clearly presents an uncomfortable truth, with compelling narratives and many practical recommendations. Reeves will move the gender debate forward with this book, cutting through the culture wars with precision and authority.
Eight years ago I wrote about the educational inequalities facing boys and young men: the year-12 retention rate in Australia was 10% lower for boys than it was for girls; there were 50% more female university graduates than men in 2012; literacy rates were about 8-9% lower for boys; the proportion of male primary school teachers was going backwards (from 30% to 20%). An incredibly intense focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives has done nothing to support vulnerable boys, nor to reverse these concerning trends during the last decade...
Of Boys and Men focuses on the United States where 12% of English teachers in middle school are men, 3% of pre-K and Kindergarten teachers are men (who are often stigmatised for their contribution to childcare and early learning), and only 2% of teachers overall are Black men. Affirmative action programs for male teachers pale in comparison to the effusive support for getting more women into STEM… At American universities there are 40% more women graduating with Bachelor and post-graduate degrees, compared to men. In 2020 every single law review at the top 16 law schools had a female editor-in-chief (Is that diverse? Is that inclusive?).
There has been very significant attention/time/money devoted to increasing women’s participation in STEM training and occupations. Reeves recommends a complementary approach of increasing men’s participation in HEAL sectors (Health, Education, Administration, and Literacy)…
Reeves does a terrific job of explaining the intersectionality faced by vulnerable boys and men. They are discriminated against because of several characteristics: being male; coming from poorer families; being Black, Brown, or Latino; being disabled; being unemployed or not in the labour force. These factors compound, to present almost insurmountable education/workforce challenges for a large majority of men in Western societies... Allowing harm to most future men (in the name of boosting up women) does nothing to rectify the misguided and flawed approaches of generations past. The “male malaise” has indeed now become an inherited condition, which is entrenching intergenerational inequity.
“Women have expanded their role, and the range of choices that they can make. Too many men are stuck with the narrow provider role, which is now badly obsolete, not only in theory but also in practice… The result is that the separation of men from women too often means the separation of fathers from children. This is bad for men, bad for women, and bad for children. Just as women have largely broken free of the old, narrow model of motherhood, so men need to escape the confines of the breadwinner model of fatherhood.”
Reeves argues for three main reforms of education as a starting point: giving boys an extra year of pre-K before starting them in school (by default they will be a year older than girls in the crucial years from age 11-15, when the developmental gap between teenage boys and girls is at it’s largest); an aggressive recruitment drive for male teachers (especially in the teaching of English, and for Black men to become teachers); significant further investment into vocational education including more technical high schools... In terms of combining work with family time, he supports six months of use-it-or-lose-it paid leave for both mother and father (available until the child turns 18 years old). He does not argue for diverting resources away from existing programs (such as for Black teachers or for encouraging women into STEM), instead focusing on how to replicate successful efforts to the areas that now need support.
The asymmetry of concern for gender equity is truly striking, with massive efforts to push female educational and workforce attainment (including after parity has been reached). World Economic Forum produces a Global Gender Gap Report, which rates countries on fourteen variables (from 0 for complete inequality through to 1 for equality). US higher education has a gender parity score of 1.36 (women are exceeding men), but this gets asymmetrically rounded down to 1 for their calculations. There is no recognition that half of the US gender variables have already been exceeded... Scotland is one of the few places to explicitly target gender inequalities in both directions, seeking to close the undergraduate enrolment gap (it currently favours women by 17%, and they are aiming to reduce that to below 5%).
It is not beyond decision makers and public policy analysts to hold multiple thoughts/goals/visions in their head at the same time. Expanding the pipeline for female executive talent, supporting high quality childcare, and removing barriers for male educational attainment can all be done at the same time. Huge resources have already been mobilised for a small subset of DEI aspirations, while minimal support has been provided to other equally worthy outcomes.
“Policymaking is not a zero-sum game in which you have to choose between caring about female disadvantage or the socio-economic gap or male underachievement… All three matter.”
This is a must-read for all parents, all educators, people who pay attention to evidence, public policy wonks, critical thinkers, people who love the boys in their life, people who care about the opportunities that men have, and for everyone who is passionate about equity. How many more warning signs will we have to drive past as a community, before we fly over the cliff’s edge (with no parachute to protect generations of boys)?
The author interview between Richard Reeves and Hari Sreenivasan is also well worth watching, which was broadcast on Amanpour and Company in October 2022.
The life outcomes for all families, for boys from poor/minority/migrant backgrounds in particular, and for disadvantaged men will depend on the education and workforce settings that we shape. Ignoring these issues will incur enormous cost (financial, emotional, social, and in so many other ways). Are we listening, and looking at the evidence?
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