American boys do not need to be rescued. They are not pathological. They are not seething with repressed rage or imprisoned in “straitjackets of masculinity.” American girls are not suffering a crisis of confidence; nor are they being silenced by the culture. But when it comes to the genuine problems that do threaten our children’s prospects—their moral drift, their cognitive and scholastic deficits—the healers, social reformers, and confidence builders don’t have the answers. On the contrary, they stand in the way of genuine solutions.
