Mark Sherman feels it’s vital for his fellow liberals to pay attention to the needs of boys and young men the way they’ve long done for girls and young women.
“It may still be a man’s world. But it is no longer in any way a boy’s.”
– Michelle Conlin, “The New Gender Gap,” the cover story in Business Week, May 26, 2003
I originally published this piece on my Psychology Today blog about two-and-a-half years ago, and it has received the most reads of any of the 24 posts I have on the site. I am only slightly revising it, since I believe that little has changed since I wrote it. It’s about a problem that, amazingly, still hasn’t hit a tipping point, even though the data made it pretty obvious nearly two decades ago. It involves a huge segment of our population: Young males.
In case you haven’t noticed, America’s boys and young men are in trouble – not doing well in school, lacking ambition, often floundering. Not all of them, of course, but enough to take notice. As a psychologist with a longstanding interest in gender issues, I have been aware of and upset by this for many years. (And I will freely admit that an important motivator for me is the fact that I have three sons and three grandsons.) What has disturbed me even more has been the response I have often received when I’ve mentioned this issue to female friends over the years. Either they have been unaware of it, surprised to hear that males in college are a distinct minority – now down to 43 percent of college undergraduates — or they have said something like, So what? You guys had your turn, now it’s ours.
Aside from the fact that this latter attitude is blatantly anti-child and anti-youth, since it denies the aspirations of half our children, it is bad for today’s girls and young women too. You don’t have to be an evolutionary psychologist to believe that the increasingly large number of highly educated women will not necessarily be happy with a pool of less educated men.
Yes, there have been numerous articles and op-eds in newspapers since Conlin’s piece, other magazine cover stories, and TV specials (on 60 Minutes and PBS), but there has been no “boys’ movement” with anything close to the impact of the national efforts to help girls that grew out of the modern women’s movement. Even in recent years, when someone writes about the way boys are lagging behind girls, he or she often talks about it as if it just started happening. For example, in a New York Times oped piece published on March 27, 2010, Nicholas Kristof, who has written extensively on the problems of girls and women in developing countries, says:
“Around the globe, it’s mostly girls who lack educational opportunities. Even in the United States, many people still associate the educational “gender gap” with girls left behind in math.
“Yet these days, the opposite problem has snuck up on us: In the United States and other western countries alike, it’s mostly boys who are faltering in school. The latest surveys show that American girls on the average have roughly achieved parity with boys in math. Meanwhile, girls are well ahead of boys in verbal skills, and they just seem to try harder.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28kristof.html
I must admit that when I read this, and saw the words “snuck up on us,” my immediate reaction was “Where have you been?” For anyone who cared to look at the data – and for millions of parents of sons (and grandparents of grandsons) – the problem was already there close to two decades ago.
How has this “new gender gap” come to be and what can we do about it?
There are lots of theories about its causes, including absent fathers, schools geared more to girls than boys, brain differences between the sexes, boys’ obsession with videogames and so on. However, because no one has ever launched a major study, it’s all still speculation. But it’s very easy to point to something that has let the problem grow to the point where even the most ardent feminist may find it hard to ignore: Caring about boys and young men — as a social group — is not something liberals (aka progressives) do. At least they haven’t, right up to this day.
I’m a liberal, but my primary professional allegiance is to the truth, especially as expressed by solid data. In this case, a truth dovetails with my primary concern, period: my family, the human beings who, along with my wife, I love most in this world: my three grown children and their three kids – all males!
I first became aware of data showing boys falling behind girls in school in the early 1990s, when the youngest of my sons was turning 10. I wrote letters urging the college at which I taught not to join in on the new “Take Our Daughters to Work” bandwagon (which started in 1993), but rather to make it “Take Our Children to Work.” I presented the data, but not one person on the nine-member committee even responded to me.
I went to a conference in 1994 where David Sadker, coauthor of the then newly published Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls, was the keynote speaker, and I raised my hand to say that I was confused, since the data was showing that it was boys who were having more trouble in school than girls. I was derided by Sadker and given no support whatever from anyone else in the audience of a hundred.
Am I crazy, I thought? Is there something I don’t know?
No, I wasn’t crazy, but there was something I didn’t know. I didn’t know that when it came to gender issues, political correctness was more important than data.
Always a staunch supporter of feminism, I was stuck. There was my “genetic” liberalism on the one hand (when you’re born to middle-class Jewish parents in Brooklyn in 1942, you’re pretty much a liberal from birth); but there were my beautiful children — and later, grandchildren — on the other, all members of a group clearly falling behind and being ignored by my left-wing compatriots.
Yet how could I join Christina Hoff Sommers, whose 2000 book, The War Against Boys had data I had been writing about for years, but who had infuriated feminists with her earlier book (Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women) and ultimately left Clark University to join the conservative American Enterprise Institute?
I still consider myself a liberal, but watching the struggles of my own children, and hearing about the problems of my friends’ sons, not to mention seeing data which grows more definitive every year, how can I ignore this? To me, liberals try to right wrongs, and that’s why when it comes to race, sexual orientation, the environment, and yes, sexism directed at women, I’m there.
But right now, where our young people are concerned, males need to be a major focus — not just their emotional development, which has been a liberal concern for years — but how they do in school. This will take efforts not only in the schools, but at home and in our communities. But most of all, it will take liberals joining in, whether they have sons or daughters. Ultimately, a cohort of undereducated and low-achieving men in a world of educated and high-achieving women sounds like a recipe for social disaster, one couple (or single male) at a time.
I can’t see myself joining people with whom I disagree sharply on almost all other social issues, so I can’t imagine becoming a conservative to help my sons, my grandsons, and young males across the country. But I can’t stand feeling so alone either; so all I can do is urge my fellow liberals to make this part of their agenda too. Maybe boys haven’t been the victims of laws and obvious isms, but, as a group, they have been the victims of, at very least, neglect, and they need help from across the political spectrum.
I remember a moment a few years ago when I was at my old department office at the nearby college and was talking to a colleague a few years younger than me. He was getting somewhat well-known for work in his field, one which is much less controversial. When I mentioned how the issue of boys and their problems in school was now finally getting some national attention, years after I had become very concerned about it, he said, “You were cutting edge.”
That doesn’t sound conservative, does it?
But a little while later, after we talked about his soon-to-be-published book, he said, “Maybe you should collaborate with one of those right-wing blonde women who appear on Fox News.”
I think things have changed somewhat since that conversation, but on the list of liberal causes, the “boy problem” is barely on the radar screen. Maybe a book like Richard Whitmire’s 2010 Why Boys Fail, which is cited by Kristof, will help. As Kristof says, it has “mountains of evidence” showing how boys are lagging behind girls in school.
I hope my fellow liberals read it. The time has more than come. What Michelle Conlin wrote in 2003 is every bit as true today. Yes, it may still be a man’s world — though, given what Hanna Rosin is saying in her new book, The End of Men: And the Rise of Women, even that has now come into question in the U.S. — but it is certainly not a boy’s.
When will we wake up, see this, and genuinely try to help our sons and grandsons the way we’ve so successfully helped our daughters and granddaughters?
This is a very slightly edited version of a piece which originally appeared on my blog on Psychology Today.
Photo—Old man with boy from Shutterstock
About Mark Sherman
I must admit that when I read this, and saw the words “snuck up on us,” my immediate reaction was “Where have you been?”
There are two types of people that who think this “snuck up on us”. People who truly were not aware of the situation and people who actively ignored/denied the situation. Be prepared to see scores of the latter trying to disguise themselves as the former.
But it’s very easy to point to something that has let the problem grow to the point where even the most ardent feminist may find it hard to ignore: Caring about boys and young men — as a social group — is not something liberals (aka progressives) do. At least they haven’t, right up to this day.
Because instances where helping boys/men really was the antithesis of progress were used to cast some illusion that ANY instance of helping boys/men inherently hurts girls/women. To verify one’s progressive street cred in the realm of gender you must be pro woman. Oh you can be pro woman where some of the benefit may trickle down to men but being directly pro male gets you labeled as anti-woman by default. Does the term “zero sum game” sound familiar?
To me, liberals try to right wrongs, and that’s why when it comes to race, sexual orientation, the environment, and yes, sexism directed at women, I’m there. But right now, where our young people are concerned, males need to be a major focus — not just their emotional development, which has been a liberal concern for years — but how they do in school.
And ther’s the mistake. The thought that when it comes to gender men have been totally in the clear up until about 2000 and then all of a sudden sexism against men just sprang forth from nothing fully grown.
You know when people point to today’s 20-30ish male crowd and admonish them about being so directionless and useless? Yeah that didn’t start on the day they turned 18. It started when they were young men and it’s not like young men were fine through out the ages until about 15 years ago then all hell broke loose.
Maybe boys haven’t been the victims of laws and obvious isms, but, as a group, they have been the victims of, at very least, neglect, and they need help from across the political spectrum.
Even when that neglect happened because they were boys?
Honestly I think part of the problem is that there is a thought that helping boys/men in a direct manner is a bad thing. Not to be confused with actively conspiring against boys mind you but when the reason they aren’t getting help is because they are assumed to be doing okay because they are lumped in with the minute minority of men that hold power, I think it’s time to point out gender being at the root of it.
It’s like even people who say they want to help boys/men want to do so in a ninja like way because it’s still too taboo to directly say “Men and boys need help and I’m going to help them.”. It still has to be reworded into, “If we help women/girls first it will help everyone, even men/boys too.”
So hey may is we keep pushing this as, “Women are getting tired of not having an available pool of men to choose from.” instead of “Men are lagging behind in education and need help.” there will be a chance in hell of more people helping.
“some illusion that ANY instance of helping boys/men inherently hurts girls/women.”
It’s not a zero sum game seems to only be used when girls / women are given special programs, assistance, or incentives. Many progressives seem to feel that when it comes to boys / men, it is a zero sum game. or at least that’s the way they play it.
I just don’t see a crisis where out of 100 students 43 are male and 57 are female. That seems pretty even to me. Maybe if out of every 100 student only 10 or 20 of them were male I can see the word “crisis” being used. What I want to know is what number would it have to be so that it was no longer brought up as a problem. If it were only 43 women out of 100 students, would it be a crisis? Maybe if men accounted for 75% of the student body it wouldn’t be seen as a problem? or maybe men want to see an exact 50/50 split of genders going to school or would it still be considered a crisis since there aren’t more men than women in school??
“a cohort of undereducated and low-achieving men in a world of educated and high-achieving women sounds like a recipe for social disaster”
And thanks for the faith in the education of women causing a social disaster. That only educated men can keep this world orderly (like that has EVER happened under men’s power) is laughable.
You don’t see a 14% achievement gap as a crisis. In a presidential election, if one candidate wins 57% of the vote it is considered an absolute BLOWOUT.
It IS a social disaster. What do you think happens when one gender is an underclass and the other isn’t? Do you think it was good when men ruled everything and women were property? Do you think it would be good to have it flipped the other way around? No one is saying that educated women will cause a social disaster. Having an upperclass of women and an underclass of men is a disaster and that is exactly what is being made.
well if you see society as competition as you do and not as a collective whole then of course there’s a crisis when your side isn’t “winning”.
I do know it’s not illegal for men to apply for college. Neither is it illegal to apply for loans or ask family for financial help. it’s not illegal for them to chose what it is that they want to focus on and education just doesn’t seem like a priority to men any more. I would like to know WHY men are choosing not to further their education and what about themsleves and their views are holding them back. not how the system is failing them.
And thanks for the faith in the education of women causing a social disaster. That only educated men can keep this world orderly (like that has EVER happened under men’s power) is laughable.
Well now. Is that what the writer is really saying or is the writer saying that the COMBINATION of educated women and uneducated men a recipe for disaster.
Now I’m sure you would have no problem with looking in the past when the tables where turned and it was educated men and uneducated women and seeing the problems right? Are you really trying to say that swinging the pendulum of uneducated/educated to the other side will magically fix things and all will be okay?
Or are you just trying to pick a fight?
Well the tables aren’t turned because it was ILLEGAL for women to get an education. I see a problem with making freedom of choice illegal for either gender or race or religion etc.
I guess my problem is that I seem to be the only one who see people for what they are.. human beings, not two seperate species of sex in competition with eachother. If the world were to see human beigns for what they were then there would be no crisis because 100% of colleges would be filled with 100% human beings furthering their education to benefit society. but what a lofty idea for the world to be able to catch on. so no, in my worldview, I DON”T see a crisis.
Having more of one sex educated over the other is not going to fix anything.
and wanting to know what ratio would NOT be considered a crisis to those who think there is a crisis is not picking a fight. If one sees a crisis they must have an assumption as to what would change or stop the crisis. is 50/50 division the only ratio which we wouldn’t have a crisis?
“it was ILLEGAL for women to get an education.”
I never knew there was such a law. In what year was it “it was ILLEGAL for women to get an education?” What was the law called that made it illegal, and in what year was that law repealed?
Never mind.
My mother got a Bachelor’s degree when you claim that it “it was ILLEGAL for women to get an education”, when men got the majority of college degrees. It was obviously NOT illegal for women to get an education. It’s NEVER been illegal.
However, the fact that there was inequality was determined to be wrong and discriminatory. Hence, many efforts were made to increase access, remove, encourage them, address social barriers that created roadblocks, give women more opportunities, devote hundreds of millions government funds to increase the number of girls and women in higher education. Many of those efforts continue to this day, including federal and state governments spending many millions of dollars.
Why should less be done for boys and men than was done for girls and women in face of inequality? Why are they not considered as worthy as females? Are they less human?
Your mom was born in the 1700′s?? Wow that is awesome
No. The 1960s.
well if illegal is too strong of a word for you. they weren’t ALLOWED. Government wasn’t for women. it was for men. Men were women’s government.
girls still didn’t attend school outside the home until the end of the 1700s, when grammar schools began to allow females to attend classes.
In 1833, Oberlin College in Ohio became the first college to permit women
The first woman was permitted to attend Harvard Medical School in 1945
During this time it was government who made legality toward males. Government Wasn’t for the female population. Someone was already governing the female population. It was the men. Government was made to keep men in line while men were used to keep women in line.
“well if illegal is too strong of a word for you. they weren’t ALLOWED.”
I’m okay with illegal if it’s true, but it’s not.
So, you’re complaining about what happened before 1945?
There are over 50 colleges in the US that don’t allow men to attend. In 2012, and only 3 that don’t allow women to attend. So, I am not at all bothered that Harvard didn’t allow women to attend until 1945.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. Are you complaining about women’s rights back in the 1940s? This is 2012. Why not join us?
Well the tables aren’t turned because it was ILLEGAL for women to get an education. I see a problem with making freedom of choice illegal for either gender or race or religion etc.
Irrelevant. Simply because something isn’t in the law books doesn’t mean it’s not bad. Regardless of WHY girls weren’t getting into those higher levels of education it was deemed something that needed to be looked into a addressed. Honestly I’m glad such things are being corrected.
Oh and when was it illegal for women to get an education? I’m not saying it never was, I just want to know when.
But….
I guess my problem is that I seem to be the only one who see people for what they are.. human beings, not two seperate species of sex in competition with eachother. If the world were to see human beigns for what they were then there would be no crisis because 100% of colleges would be filled with 100% human beings furthering their education to benefit society. but what a lofty idea for the world to be able to catch on. so no, in my worldview, I DON”T see a crisis.
…now that the tables have turned and the question is why boys are lagging behind all of a sudden now we are all just humans making our own choices for better or worse and there is no need to look into it? How nice. I guess we are all equal as long as females aren’t getting the short end of the stick.
And who said anything about competition? It’s clear that even in the earliest stages of education boys are lagging behind girls are aren’t doing so hot in terms of meeting the standards themselves. But again that gets ignored in favor of thinking that boys are doing just fine until they finish high school and then all drive just slips away.
Having more of one sex educated over the other is not going to fix anything.
It’s not about having more of one sex educated over the other and of course that is not the fix. The fix is trying to encourage boys at the younger ages to seek education rather than looking at the current crop of 20-30 year olds and saying they just don’t want it when their decline in “not wanting it” can be tracked back to the earliest days of their education.
and wanting to know what ratio would NOT be considered a crisis to those who think there is a crisis is not picking a fight. If one sees a crisis they must have an assumption as to what would change or stop the crisis. is 50/50 division the only ratio which we wouldn’t have a crisis?
It’s not about the ratio. It’s about the performance levels in and of themselves. I don’t know why you’re trying to make it about the ratios but to me that’s not it. It’s about young boys whose performance levels are dropping. It’s about young boys whose reading comprehension is below the very grade they in at the moment. It’s about young boys who think they are too dumb to go to college. It’s about young boys who think they are supposed to get out into the work force as soon as possible to be “the provider”.
That’s the kind of stuff that creates the educated women/uneducated man situation. Again when it was educated man/uneducated women I’m sure you could see what was wrong.
How about this. Since the you seem to be one of those folks that’s bothered by use of the word crisis can we at least agree that its a problem that needs to be looked into?
“You don’t see a 14% achievement gap as a crisis.”
Feminists.
More evidence that inequality favoring females is the desired state, the larger the gap the better.
Nah. Just Passing doesn’t identify as feminist in that comment.
Let’s bear in mind that when it comes to denying the situation that boys and men are in it’s not just feminists we have to deal with (but with the intensity they deny it I can understand being distracted by them).
I’ve never seen anyone outside of the feminist movement or its influence that argued that men and boys being increasingly behind is a good thing. Maybe this is a first.
@ Just Passing
“I just don’t see a crisis where out of 100 students 43 are male and 57 are female. That seems pretty even to me.”
Does it? So why aren’t you simultaneously calling for an end to programs assisting girls and women? Why are there women’s centers, but not men’s centers. Look at the outcry at SFU when a men’s center was proposed. Why is there no push to include considering ALL student services and not just athletics when determining Title IX compliance? Why is there a push now to forgive student loans, is it because the primary beneficiaries would be women? Shouldn’t women need to be responsible for their choices also? If 43% isn’t low enough to warrant special consideration then 57$ certainly isn’t, at least to anyone with intellectual honesty.
first; why wouldn’t I Simultaneously “call for an end to programs”? because there is nothing I said that is simultaneous with calling for an end to programs.
There are men’s centers, just less of them. have you asked the men in your life why they haven’t come together to make these centers? There is no push because society see Human beings as seperate from eachother based off their sex. If they were forgiving student loans for ONLY female college students then I can see your arguement but that is not the case. Again, I don’t see how student loan forgiveness is granted to only females and therefore ONLY females are being held responsible for their choices.
And I agree that neither 43% nor 57% is enough to warrant consideration(no matter what sex is the higher percentage ). I never said 43% was low enough to warrant consideration while 57% does. Hence the “pretty even” comment. Apparently I am intellectually honest.
There is also the insidious belief that anything wrong with boys/young men is immediately their fault. When girls were not doing as well as boys in school, it was because they were the victims of an unfair system that was designed to suppress them. With young men, it is our own damn fault because we’re lazy and unwilling to work and would rather play video games. We get gender equality bashed into our heads, and how we have it so much better than women but that is not the reality we live in. Young women earn more than young men do, they have far more opportunity when it comes to getting a decent education, and there are so many different programs that exist purely to help women. These simply do not exist for young men. There are no “man scholarships” there are no special government contracting provisions for businesses owned by men, etc. All the systems we have in place to help women are left over from previous generations when women DID need that extra leg up.
Today, they still get that extra leg up, and without any corresponding help for boys, we are falling so very far behind. Then there is the whole relationship side of things where men are still expected to take the same role we took when women did not work and be the one who pays for things and makes things happen. The economics have changed but the sociology has not. Young men are getting battered on all sides, but this fact is ignored by the world at large. If we dare to complain about injustice, we are pilloried and told that we don’t even comprehend the kind of privilege we have and are just whiny, lazy, losers.
Any program that is designed to help men is attacked by feminists. Take the uproar about the masculinist groups of a couple years ago and the group that wanted to create a men-only scholarship. It drew national attention and thorough condemnation from feminist groups. Why? Because it was a program exclusively designed to help men. If you believe we should have programs tailored to help men, you are a misogynist. If you believe we should have programs tailored to help men and programs tailored to help women, you are a misogynist. If you believe we should have no programs to help any specific group, you are a misogynist. The only way you are not labeled a misogynist is if you believe we should have programs tailored to help women and women only.
It is a huge mess, but few seem to care to address it. So we have tons of boys and young men who have checked out of being complete, productive members of society because we have the blame for everything laid squarely at our feet. Who wants to go out there and engage themselves in the world when you are blamed for everything bad, are not given room to feel weak, powerless, or speak out about injustice done to you, and are told that you are inherently bad? This is the message that we get. I’m 23, and it is absolutely pervasive in my generation. Most of us really do try to keep our chin up and soldier on, but it is hard to keep going when you feel the whole world is against you, and you have no safe place to turn.
Young men have been backed into a corner with enemies on all sides, and it is no surprise that we have aggressive blowback from a group that has been backed into a corner with nowhere to turn.
We should abolish all scholorship programs that help one gender over another or one race or religion. Our scholorship programs should reflect the Intelectual curitosity and motivation of perspective students. We should have programs that help those that would benefit and not take for granted the help that is offered them. People want equality but focus on how to “one up” the other to perceive themselves as “close to equal” or have “level playing ground”
If we want true equality we need to hold all people accountable for their actions and judge them based off their character.
How about we sponsor a scholarship for men backed by an institution with some street cred among liberals. Can I suggest a goodmenproject scholarship?
That’s actually brilliant!
What a brilliant idea. The goodmenproject is always trying to reach out to men and tell their stories. I think many people who’ve been helped by this site would be want to give back in order to make a positive difference. More men would have an incentive to share their stories if their story could earn them a scholorship too. The site coudl become a place for activism as well as story telling.
Thank you so much for this article, Mark. I welcome the prospect of working with anyone who wants to seek equality in society, regardless of their political allegiance – but fellow-liberals are a real bête noire to me when it comes to their double standards with boys and young men.
Even if these issues were affecting a minority of men – although from the sounds of it, it’s worse than that – are these liberals really going to sit there and support every single minority cause under the sun, but make a sharp exit when it comes to a minority issue where the victims are men?
Without wishing to sound too conspiratorial, I see this kind of double standard in issues of race as well where double standards are applied between whites and non-whites – though I’d argue there aren’t that many pressing issues affecting white people as a race – and I can’t tell whether this has it’s roots in something like critical theory or whether it’s simply a natural urge for payback welling up in people fighting their way out of a long spell of inequality. Or maybe something else entirely….
,,,its about power and cognitive dissonance. Progressives (ok feminists specifically) fear that acknowledging systemic disadvantages against men and boys will diminish the legitimacy of their efforts to engineer “equalizing” advantages to women and girls. Its also hard for any person whose spent many years believing a certain world view, and investing themselves wholly in it, to simply accept contrary evidence without massive internal conflict. We have a deep need to remain internally consistent; our believe systems have momentum that takes years to undo. This is true whether you are a conservative or a liberal. Easier to simply deny the facts when they conflict with your believe system.
Like I said in another thread, the system is operating as designed and the very progressives that the author is calling on to help will be the ones to actively prevent any substantive change for the better. Keep providing lip service and building prisons seems to be the unspoken preferred solution.
The “we can’t afford to lose any of our hard earned gains with so much work left to do” crowd will kill any effort to assist boys in what is and will be for the foreseeable future a zero sum gain, flat budget environment.
From the article:
Am i the only one who finds it telling that men’s problems must be re-cast to a women’s problem for it to gain any attention or traction. This quote from Hillary Clinton is another example of that dynamic:
We get the gist.
I lay the problem of boys faltering at the feet of the father. It is the father who is the first significant male in a boy (and girls) life. He is the one who sets the expectation and the example of how to be a man. From my own experience raising kids I know empirically that it is not what you say to your kid it is what you do. Fathers are the supreme role model for manhood and your son will get his version of manhood based on you. So, here’s the problem: If you as a father are absent or are still trying to work out your father issues and your version of manhood is a direct reaction to your father’s failings and your not quite sure yourself what a man is then your son will flounder in the same abyss you find yourself in. Self awareness, self actualization and being there for your kids is the salve. Do the work, it pays off forever going forward.