Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It

by Richard V. Reeves

Worldwide, men commit over 95% of homicides and the overwhelming majority of violent acts of other kinds, including sexual assault.

For one thing, it looks as if testosterone does not directly trigger aggression but amplifies it.

It is also important to note that most societies have become much less violent over time, and that there are big differences in crime rates among countries today.

Societies have become less violent over time.

The traits that get passed on are the ones that have been reproductively effective.

Men, for example, have a greater appetite for risk. This is not a social construct. It can be identified in every known society throughout history,

Men have a greater propensity for risk.

In fact, we have twice as many female ancestors as male ones.

How can we have twice as many female ancestors as male ones?

But of course one man can father many children with many women, while others father none at all.

Genghis Khan, a direct ancestor of 1 in 200 people today, is perhaps the most famous example.

“To maximize reproduction, a culture needs all the wombs it can get, but a few penises can do the job. There

the “math problem of surplus men.”24

Men who are in danger of becoming evolutionary duds will be willing to take serious risks in order to gain access to a mate, perhaps by committing a crime to get more resources, or fighting in a potentially lucrative war.

Men go through risks to attract a mate.

as the surplus boys became men, crime rates started to rise. Not modestly, either: arrest rates almost doubled.25

this usually tips into antisocial forms of risk-taking (such as crime) only in circumstances of intense competition.

Men's appetite for risk taking becomes more pronounced when they have to compete against one another.

The one where we tried to be the last one to dash across a highway in front of an oncoming truck particularly stands out.

Men seem to demonstrate a greater willingness to take risks in order to save others,

Men are more willing to die for others.

Lucas Y. Silverio Mendoza,

Christian Alexander Burgos,

A study in New York found that opening a strip club or escort agency reduced sex crime in the surrounding neighborhood by 13%.

Interesting!

What was he thinking, in the middle of a meeting, in the middle of the day?” For most of the men it was, “What was he thinking, not checking that his camera was turned off?”

Different reactions to Toobin's scandal.

Children with fathers in prison see a shortening of the length of their telomeres (the ends of chromosomes), which increases the risk of health problems in adulthood.

Children with fathers in prison see a shortening of the length of their telomeres.

Culture determines how we manage, channel, and express many of the natural traits I have described here.

As the institution of monogamous marriage spread, the number of men directly involved in raising families rose.

Does monogamy make a difference?

Manhood is fragile.

Womanhood is defined more by biology, manhood more by social construction.

Womanhood is defined more by biology whereas manhood is more of a social construct.

When was the last “crisis of femininity”? That’s right: never.

“Real men do not simply emerge naturally over time like butterflies from boyish cocoons; they must be assiduously coaxed from their juvenescent shells, shaped and nurtured, counseled and prodded into manhood.”

showed that in more gender-equal countries, such as Finland and Norway, women were less likely to take university courses in STEM subjects.

In more gender equal countries, women were less likely to take course in STEM fields.

“A possible explanation is that people in more progressive and equal countries have a greater opportunity to express inherent biological differences” says one of the authors,

People in progressive and equal countries have more ability to express their inherent biological differences.

around 30% of engineers would be female if interests alone were driving occupational choice, according to their estimates, but the actual number of women engineers was half that.

J. F. Roxburgh, the first headmaster of Stowe School, a private boys’ school in England, described his goal as cultivating men who would be “acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.”

The type of men J. F. Roxburgh wanted to create.

Adolescent girls are after all capable of similar kinds of bullying and disrespect, often toward other girls, but it is not instantly cast as “toxic femininity.”

Is there such a thing as toxic femininity?

tendency to pathologize naturally occurring aspects of masculine identity,

fixed conviction that gender inequality can only run one way, that is, to the disadvantage of women.

Harrington points out that the term is almost never defined, even by academics, and is instead used to simply “signal disapproval.”

Harrington points out that toxic masculinity is almost never described by academics just used to signal disapproval.

Lacking any coherent or consistent definition, the phrase now refers to any male behavior that the

user disapproves of, from the tragic to the trivial.

Lumping together terrorists and delinquents, it ultimately poisons the very idea of masculinity itself.

Toxic masculinity is so widely and indiscriminately used that it does not hold any meaning or perhaps it trivializes things.

what they liked about being a boy.

This is a great question.

It is a bad idea to send a cultural signal to half the population that there may be something

intrinsically wrong with them.

Term toxic masculinity is alientating.

Usually, progressives are reluctant to ascribe too much responsibility to individuals for their problems.

Progressives are usually loath to blame the individual for his problems.

In the UK, the death rate among working-age men was twice as high as for women of the

same age.

Death rate amongst working men is higher than it is among women.

more gender-specific medicine, including clinical trials that break down the results and side effects by gender.

Proposes that we have more gender specific medicine.

that while biology matters a great deal, it is only in a way that favors females.

Melvin Konner argues that biology favours women.

But in some ways this is the most dangerous message of all: men are naturally different than women, but only in ways that are bad.

Dangerous idea: Men are different from women biologically but only in ways that are bad.

inability to recognize that gender inequalities can—and increasingly do—run in both directions.

One failure of the Left is to recognize or acknowledge that gender inequality can run both ways.

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.

Zero sum thinking: acknowledging the inequalities that hurt boys and men will take away from the gains of girls and women.

By implication, Sen. Hawley does not see it

as wrong to force our sons, fathers, husbands, and brothers to do so.