Introduction
Is the problem men, or is it our culture? Can it be both? Looking at the shifting preference for girls in developing countries all the way to the digital manosphere promoted by influencers such as Andrew Tate, Editor-in-Chief Chloe Hunt examines the current state of young boys and men.
We’re Growing in Female Empowerment… and Misogyny
Who runs the world? Girls! Who runs the world! Girls! But literally, almost. In the United States, education empowers girls to outpace their male counterparts. In academic achievement, girls are killing it–girls outpace boys in literacy. More and more college students are women. We’re witnessing a quiet cultural revolution. Whether it’s a valedictorian list or the leader of student government, girls are taking over schools. Culturally, girls are told, for maybe the first time at this scale, “you can do it.” And they are doing it.
But while we grow in female achievement, we’re also growing backwards, as misogynistic thought fills young boys’ brains. With boys in the classroom, teachers witness an increasing lack of respect for authority, their peers, and people on the whole. Last year, a high school history teacher in the South went viral on TikTok for sharing the emerging dynamic of boys within the classroom. He noted that–in his experience–young boys are becoming increasingly more “crass”, making jokes with punchlines that revolve around sexism, racism, or harm, and they’re receiving no pushback. “They’re not facing pushback when they make seriously unfunny jokes,” the teacher said. “And when I say unfunny, I’m not trying to be subjective about it.” The teacher then goes on to share his experience overhearing a rape joke in the hallway. He sounded the alarm on the fact that high school boys need to be shamed. They need to know what’s not funny, and what’s not okay.
Young boys know what they aren’t supposed to believe in, but they don’t necessarily know what to believe in. This goes far beyond the classroom. We know that boys and girls are evolving differently in this generation. We know culture is changing. American culture used to offer its youth a blueprint. Under JFK, boys knew to be strong, fit leaders. He knew boys valued physical fitness, and he instilled it into our educational system. Reagan told our youth to be patriotic and proud. He told boys and girls they were exceptional, like America. And now, we know girls are supposed to be empowered. Girls are supposed to take their role in society. And boys? Well, they don’t fit the narrative. They’re stuck. They’re not allowed to take on gender roles of the past, and modern culture cut them out.
So, boys are disengaging from this cultural moment. They don’t fit into the new blueprint. Maybe because there isn’t one. And if there is, it relies on telling boys what they can’t do.
Let’s Hear it For the Girls
And girls? They’re more adaptive. Girls have had to be adaptive. Not only are girls more adaptive, but girls are adapting to a culture that believes in them.
“The future is female.” “Female empowerment.” YA novels with overwhelmingly female protagonists. Netflix dramas centered on the escapades of young girls, detailing their emotional worlds, painting boys as side characters. Fashion cycles revolving around women. In business, “girl boss” culture. Female vulnerability is increasingly celebrated. Emotions are marketed to women. Female empowerment is sensationalized–male empowerment is sexist. Wellness and personal growth are geared towards women, and wellness and personal growth for men? Not promoted. Not dealt with. Boys are no longer told who they should be–they are told who they shouldn’t be. But in a culture that finally appreciates and promotes women, how can we ensure that boys aren’t left behind?
This is not to say that men are victims of a cultural war at all, but rather, culture is shifting. Plain and simple. There’s a script for girlhood–there’s princesses, female icons, mentors, and inspirations across pop culture. For boys, it’s void. The previous definitions of boyhood and manhood were predicated on subservient, willing women. What does masculinity look like when femininity is just as valued?
In some cases, girls are more valued. A shifting preference for girls is a phenomenon that is expanding into the developing world. The Economist recently released a stunning report on births across developing nations, unpacking the diminishing bias for boys as well as a surprising new preference for girls. Boys used to feel validated just because they were boys. That’s gone. And in school, boys are seeing increasingly less success in nearly every metric.
Across the world, young girls demonstrate mounting success in educational achievement and transitions to adulthood, whereas young men report slipping through the cracks. Girls take more advanced courses in high school. Even in young populations, girls do better. For every 100 girls who repeat kindergarten, there’s 145 boys. Boys, on the other hand, struggle through K-12 education. They struggle not only in terms of results, but also in terms of behavior. Teachers report boys having difficulty sitting still. Boys struggling to focus. Boys avoiding leadership roles.
Surprisingly, this isn’t a new phenomenon. In 2007, researchers Michael Gurian and Kathy
Stevens published a revealing book titled The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life. Even then, scholars and parents were heavily concerned about their kids’ futures. Then, boys received up to 70% of the Ds and Fs in secondary school; only 41% of college students were boys; and three out of four students with learning disabilities were boys! And guess what? This was all before the age of social media, which only exacerbated the issue of young boys faltering academically.
So, boys are and have been struggling at an academic level, but now, this struggle goes beyond the classroom. Outside of school, young boys don’t feel supported.
But young boys are men are losing their sense of self and their equilibrium. And they’re not turning to books, school, sports, or parents. While culture is absent, the Internet takes over.
Legitimate Concerns About Young Boys and Development
I watched Adolescence, the Netflix original detailing a 13-year-old boy who murders his female classmate, and I learned about how dangerous and weighty the effects of the Internet, group thought, and testosterone-filled echo chambers can be. Albeit fictionalized, Adolescence showcases the underground, twisted world of the Internet that parents need to be wary of. Most potently, this show portrays Jamie–the protagonist– as a boy that seems completely normal: loving, thoughtful, and involved parents; healthy sibling relationships; a smart kid with a solid educational foundation. Yet, behind the screen, in the depths of imagined privacy, Jamie self-radicalizes. Following the release of Adolescence, the Internet spoke. And, in digital conversations infused with data, personal testimony, and general social commentary, many viewers reached the same conclusion, “What the hell is going on with our boys?”
Intertwined in this conversation was the “Andrew Tate Effect.” This relatively recent phenomena of impressionable, young boys sucked into the digital “manosphere” of the self-proclaimed misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate creates a multitude of consequences: viewing women as “others”, praise of sexist humor, and the normalization of misogyny. Tate manages to capitalize on the precarity of this economic moment, instilling values of hegemonic masculinity that, in effect, tell young boys that they need to rebel against the feminization of society.
In the digital manosphere, to sum it up, men are victimized, women need domination, and society is doomed. Information once reserved for hard-to-access sub-Reddits and niche commentary sites now seeps into mainstream media. And as culture changes, certainly a subgroup of young boys have responded by leaning further into misogynistic influencers such as Andrew Tate. With one in eight boys aged 6-15 reporting they agree on Tate’s views on women, and close to 50% of boys agreeing with Tate’s views on success and work, we see young boys turning not to their parents, teachers, or mentors for support and guidance, but rather to influencers. A focus-group examining Tate’s discourse found a few recurring themes:
men are “naturally” dominant, gender stereotypes reign, and male victimhood/aggrieved masculinity.
Without cultural support, young boys turn to the screen. And in politics, they don’t know where to turn. But they know where not to.
Political Repercussions
The cultural rejection with men–coupled with the dark manosphere web–has lended itself to a new political phenomena: men under 30 are more likely to support Donald Trump than women their age. What’s more? This political gender gap is far greater than in previous generations. In fact, while men have rolled to the right, young women report moving to the left.
So, how can Democrats win men back? Do Democrats want to win the male vote? Yes, they do. Few Americans know about the Speaking with American Men project, a $20 million dollar endeavor by Democrats to try and understand men. So far, the initial research included focus groups and media consumption surveys. The early results? Men don’t believe in either political party. But, they do believe that Republicans are strong, and Democrats are weak. The focus group also revealed a scary truth: men feel as though they are in crisis. Bolstered by the pandemic and cultural shifts, young men feel lost as people, an idea that has permeated into the political sphere. Some Democrats are mocking this project, finding it silly and useless. The irony here? That attitude–one that rejects the valid whirlwind of emotions men are feeling–is exactly why men are feeling increasingly jaded politically and turning to the party that believes they’re still people.
What Can We Do to Save America’s Young Men?
In spite of all the ways that young boys have failed America, America has a duty to bring its boys to light. Girls are adaptive, because they know the path. In every channel of society, we’ve told girls who they can be. And the answer is, for the most part, anything. On the contrary, boys know what they can’t be. But do they know how to be?
Transgressive by nature from a young age in schools, boys need vision, not rigid boundaries that leave them feeling isolated and unable to express themselves. While boys need clear, unrelenting boundaries when it comes to right and wrong, they need to know that they aren’t trapped in a liminal space of undefined masculinity. In schools, this means adopting male mentorship programs–giving boys role models that are face-to-face, reliable voices for strength and kindness, not profit-driven ghosts like Andrew Tate. This means prioritizing boys’ mental health from a young age, in order to prevent contributing to the loneliness epidemic that plagues young men. What motivates boys most in school is a strong relationship with a teacher–if teachers can be pillars for their male students, boys will not only do better in the classroom, but also, become better people outside of school.
We also can’t be afraid of separating men and women. The new woke, hyper-sensitive culture emphasizes men and women being treated as equals in all senses. The catch? We’re not completely equal. Men and women, objectively, have different strengths. In order to capitalize on our strengths, we have to acknowledge that the sexes are different. Girls are better at learning in a traditional sense–we’re better listeners, and our brains develop quicker. We continue to outperform boys. But, boys are equally smart. Boys are better at a multitude of things, and boys need extra time to get their energy out. With a lack of focus and engagement, certain lesson plans and school structure should be tailored to offering boys what they need. The school system just isn’t adapted to their strengths. Natural differences between the sexes are normal and should be appreciated, even in school. Whether this means offering different activities during a free period for boys and girls or allowing more outlets for group competition, there are ways to include boys. We just aren’t implementing them.
Saving young boys isn’t a political issue–it’s a moral one. We pride ourselves on being the emotionally intelligent generation. We are the generation able to confront and address what we’re feeling in conversation with family, friends, and peers, and in therapy…But, we’ve rejected boys’ emotions. Obviously, we all know the common trope–boys don’t cry. Boys aren’t taught to feel. They’re told to be strong, but not too strong. Tough, but not too tough. The solution isn’t to pigeonhole boys into a softer version of themselves– the solution is to teach strength, strength with bravery, ambition, and drive. Strength with emotion.
And for parents, this means doing more parenting. Less screen time. Children need their role models. Parents are increasingly disengaged, especially when it comes to their children’s school. This active disengagement doesn’t only disappoint kids–it sets them back. With boys already teetering on the edge in school, parents’ lack of engagement and support is more than detrimental to their child’s success–it’s lethal. And as parents fade away, as any part of a boy’s necessary support system fades away, the screen is always there. And the screen–in all its messed up, dark glory–never fails them.
So before we blame the boys, look at the structure of the system. Boys deserve better education, better role models, and better societal systems that uplift them, not dog them.
When young men have purpose, society has purpose. A good society doesn’t just empower women–it empowers all of its members to channel their innate strengths for community enrichment and greatness. And boys are capable of greatness– we just have to guide them.
