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I am obsessed with gender issues, and thus am constantly surfing the Internet, using various Google combinations to see what goodies I can find. My main problem is that after years of being a strong supporter of feminism, I discovered, nearly 25 years ago, that it was boys much more than girls who were struggling in school, not to mention in other even more significant ways – for example, committing suicide at around four times the rate that girls were. Having three sons (the youngest of whom was 12 when I made this discovery), I realized that my children were being ignored. Having later been blessed by the birth of four grandsons, my concern about boys as a group has only increased.
But the concern of our country hasn’t.
For example, in spite of data overwhelmingly showing the problems that boys struggle with, there is no White House Council on Boys and Men to parallel the one established for women and girls very soon after President Obama took office — this in spite of years of hard work by a bipartisan network of experts who have pushed for one (for full disclosure, I am part of this group). And the situation I wrote about here more than six years ago, in piece titled “Boys and Young Men: A New Cause for Liberals,” has barely changed. If you do see an article or book in support of boys or men, it is usually by someone known to be a conservative or it is on a conservative website. Consider the first well-known book on this issue, The War Against Boys, in 2000, by Christina Hoff Sommers (now with the American Enterprise Institute). Or a 2015 article in the National Review, titled “Why Do More Women Than Men Go to College?” My fellow liberals continue to focus almost exclusively on women and girls.
Yes, the New York Times occasionally writes on this theme (less now than they used to, it seems to me), but you’ll most often see concerns expressed on the conservative side.
In a sense, I get it. I’m 73 years old, so I don’t have to read books to remind me of how women were treated years ago. In 1968, a Harvard (then Radcliffe) undergraduate told me that when she was looking for an internship at a law firm, and asked if they hired women, she was told, “Well, perhaps we would; we hired a cripple last year.” (In how many ways was that an atrocious statement?!) I saw the life my mother-in-law led, a brilliant woman, born in 1922, who grew up poor, and at a time when girls, especially from poor families, were in no way encouraged to seek professions. I saw my wife treated shabbily by a succession of male (and granted, occasionally female) bosses.
Have things totally equaled out? No. Are things radically different? Yes. Law firms hiring women? Today, approximately half the graduates of law schools are women. Poor women going to college? Today, young women of all socioeconomic strata are strongly encouraged to pursue a higher education. All this notwithstanding, there is a genuine memory for any woman over the age of 40 or so of sex discrimination (and much still exists); and what you remember stays with you. I call this the victim antennae. I have always had this as a Jew. My nervous system will automatically note almost before my mind does any comment that could even vaguely be construed as anti-Semitic. And I have had that same kind of sensitivity for years now as a father and grandfather of males. And I assume that many, many women have it too for anything they sense as devaluing women.
But let’s for the moment concentrate on one group only, absolutely the most important group of all:
Children.
Just for today, let us stop thinking about anyone over the age of 21, and simply consider the world of young people. Forgetting for now about the world of women and men, can anyone show me statistics showing that whether it is poor school performance, being the victims of homicide, suicide rates, absence of same sex role models in the home, being incarcerated, and being victims of drug overdoses, boys and young men are doing better than girls and young women? No, it is quite the opposite.
My grandsons, who range in age from three to 11, are doing fine, at least for now. But if they were old enough and sophisticated enough to appreciate media and academic coverage of gender, they would realize immediately that they live in a country that barely cares about them and their future. And they are the lucky ones. They are white (although one is half-Asian). They are privileged. For African-American boys, the situation is horrific.
I am for equality, which some feminists say is their goal. So I am not saying to forget about the girls and the important issues they continue to face. But let’s remember the boys too. And not just for today. Every day.
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This article was originally published on Psychology Today and is republished here with the author’s permission.
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Sure our schools support boys – look at all the girls they send home because their clothes might be too distracting for the boys! And look at all the boys who get to complete their educations even after raping girls that they know! (ok, they usually have to be athletes, but you get the picture) If that’s not schools supporting boys, I don’t know what is.
Sure our schools support boys – look at all the girls they send home because their clothes might be too distracting for the boys! That’s not supporting boys that’s using boys as a scapegoat to impose oppressive dress codes on girls. If you weren’t so invested in hating boys you would see that. And look at all the boys who get to complete their educations even after raping girls that they know! (ok, they usually have to be athletes, but you get the picture) That’s not supporting boys that’s using them as a commodity and borderline slave labor to build… Read more »
I fail to understand this criticism. Boys are failing in school by the hundreds of thousands, but let’s derail the conversation about how so many boys are being poorly served by the education system and instead let’s make the conversation all about a tiny minority of girls. Let’s talk about how a tiny minority of boys who are alleged to rape girls (never the other way around apparently) and yet manage to stay in school. There must be what, a dozen of those? Yeah – forget the institutional disadvantage that boys suffer from – grown ass women are the real… Read more »
You don’t see conservatives in the last 37 years trying to help the men and boys in the poor, rural, and minority communities. The Republican Congress during the Obama administration refused to put American men back to work and the mostly conservative business leaders told Obama that they were not going to bring back the manufacturing job to America.
. “If you do see an article or book in support of boys or men, it is usually by someone known to be a conservative or it is on a conservative website. Consider the first well-known book on this issue, The War Against Boys, in 2000, by Christina Hoff Sommers (now with the American Enterprise Institute). Or a 2015 article in the National Review, titled “Why Do More Women Than Men Go to College?” My fellow liberals continue to focus almost exclusively on women and girls” There are liberals out there that support boys. If conservatives support boys or men,… Read more »
Very simple to explain this. You can’t speak about disadvantage suffered by boys/men in “liberal circles” and be taken seriously – so few do it. Where it’s allowed (it rarely is), you have to structure the discussion in how that disadvantage actually hurts girls/women, and how it’s all, somehow, all the fault of “men” (patriarchy, toxic masculinity, etc). You can’t just can’t have a frank and open conversation about how men/boys are disadvantaged in liberal circles without blaming/shaming/finger-pointing or otherwise dismissing men. You can, occasionally, have that conversation in “conservative circles”, but pay close attention to those who start/champion that… Read more »
You can’t take conservatives seriously when you look at their poor track record of helping men and boys. What mainstream liberal media? The media is overwhelming owned by rich conservative wealthy people or corporations. Where have you been for the last several years regarding the media? You can’t expect people to take you seriously when you keep saying that the mainstream media is liberal. Conservatives do not give liberals a voice at all. You look at Fox News where if you have a liberal like Mike Papantonio of the TV/radio show Ring of Fire being a guest on Fox News… Read more »
If you do see an article or book in support of boys or men, it is usually by someone known to be a conservative or it is on a conservative website. Is it because only conservatives talk about boys and men or is it because partisan politics and identity politics have convinced people that only woman hating conservatives will speak up about men and boys? My nervous system will automatically note almost before my mind does any comment that could even vaguely be construed as anti-Semitic. And I have had that same kind of sensitivity for years now as a… Read more »
@ Danny
One of the problems with comparing things today with things that happened in the past, is that the past never changes so things will never actually equalize. It’s my opinion that it’s one of the reasons why that tactic is used. Men’s and boy’s issues will never have to be addressed by people who don’t care about them. It’s an excuse for the haters to claim the moral high ground. Unfortunately many otherwise decent people buy into it.
Exactly. That’s why for some odd reason its okay for women to still talk about how women didn’t have the right to vote until about 100 years ago but its somehow wrong for men to talk about Selective Service which is still active today. Women have had the vote for nearly 100 years but its still a valid issue to bring up but only males having to register for Selective Service isn’t valid because Draft hasnt been done in like 50 years. You’re right its an excuse for people who have bigoted attitudes towards men to still claim a moral… Read more »
No. Mark. They won’t. Part of the reason is that our culture has been indoctrinated to the continuation of victimization of women by men has continued. Perpetrated by men in training who are called boys. Not withstanding that young women are actually encouraging the very alleged victimization of themselves. They shame sensitive boys to man up and when they do they are called pigs. Man we are one seriously screwed up culture. That was a nice way of saying what I truly wanted to say.
I guy working for the college once talked to his boss about ways to help men and close the gender gap in college education. His boss told him that if you frame it as an issue of enrollment or retention, you might get it approved, but if you frame it as an issue men, you won’t get anywhere. Recognizing that men and boys have issues is only part of the problem. Getting society to care is a different story altogether. You’d either have to change the societal perception that men are disposable or there would need to be a “tipping… Read more »