Men Aren't as Doomed as We Think
Currents
In the 2002 indie dramedy film Roger Dodger, the opening scene contains some striking dialogue that feels oddly prescient today. The main character, played by Campbell Scott, discusses the roles men and women occupy, at one point saying, “The species is not static. We're in a constant state of flux. Two genders has been the default setting for one reason only: So far, it's been the only way to propagate the race.” He goes on to conclude, “It means that 10 or 15 generations from now, men will be reduced to servitude. Technology and evolution will have combined to exclude sperm from procreation, and our final destiny will be to lift couches and wait for that day when telepathy overcomes gravity and our gender's last remaining utility is lost forever.”
As outlandish as this all sounded back in 2002 — as the other characters in the scene make clear — it speaks to something that’s been growing within much of the Western male psyche over the last 20 years. Namely, the possibility that any utility men have, as men, is slipping away, under attack, or long gone. This has been reflected in many ways, ranging from the runaway popularity of the “Redpill” movement to the success of gurus like Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, and Sneako. In many ways, this should come as little surprise, considering the proliferation of feminist messaging in popular culture and associated narratives which tar masculinity as something “toxic”, often without helpful qualifiers. Then consider the facts on the ground about the struggles men are going through, as studied extensively by Brookings Institute Fellow Richard Reeves in his recent book Of Boys and Men (2022), and the discourse on the “crisis of masculinity” becomes quite understandable. However, while the challenges facing many Western men are very real, men are by no means doomed, especially if we turn to the very same liberal principles that have helped women.
As Richard Reeves discovered through exhaustively reviewing the available data in education and employment, men are falling behind women in profound ways. He highlights, for example, that while women's wages have risen in every field over recent decades, men's have declined. Alongside that is something even more disturbing: men's participation in the labor force has declined by seven percentage points over the past half century. The data even suggests that around five million working-age American men are simply out of the workforce altogether. This could manifest in myriad ways, none good, including living off of one's parents or partner, or even chronic homelessness. A far cry from the reductive “wage gap” narratives of the 2010s.
Education, as Reeves notes, doesn't seem to be the answer to men's woes, as girls make up two-thirds of the top 10% of high school GPAs while boys comprise two-thirds of the bottom 10%. Almost every college campus has a majority female student body, and only 74 men for every 100 women earn college degrees. Parenting is another area of concern. Reeves documents that fatherless homes have doubled to 20% during the last half century, and boys suffer their absence far more than girls. Looking at the data, which just goes on and on and on, it can appear as though men are facing existential problems. Compounding this are two internet-fueled ideologies that seem overly focused on men — Critical Social Justice with its sloppy generalizations about “toxic masculinity”, and the “manosphere” with its bitter obsession with turning back the clock in order to re-subjugate women in their earlier roles. Both offer only grievances and no workable solutions. In order to tackle the problems facing boys and men, we must first look at how we got here.
The truth is, while the decline of men in America appears to be a modern development, the conditions that allowed for their decline are nothing new. Much has been written about how Western societies are experiencing an age of anxiety and uncertainty, often coupled with observations about dwindling religious faith. While church attendance is indeed at an all-time low, disillusionment leading to institutional collapse is a very, very old phenomenon. Often, it's the result of massive calamities, including war and, especially, plague. In the wake of the Black Death of the 14th century, for example, many survivors shifted their faith from the Church to a more personal style of worship. In the years following the First World War and the so-called “Spanish flu”, which together claimed hundreds of millions of lives, many gave up on God entirely, giving way to the rise of mysticism and gurus. The account from an Eastern Orthodox priest named Father Dmitrevskii recalls what he saw as he moved through the streets of St. Petersburg:
“In bookstore display windows, at the train stations, all these books about spiritualism, chiromancy, occultism, and mysticism in general leap out at you. Even the most innocent books are sold in covers decorated with some kind of mystical emblems and symbols which assault the eye.”
Father Dmitrevskii was bemoaning the loss of purchase his institution had on the minds of the faithful, who turned to alternative sources of spirituality and guidance. This kind of social landscape of disillusionment is what paves the way for problematic beliefs and gurus, something we saw in the 1920s with the rise of totalitarian nation-cults such as Nazism and Soviet communism, and something we’re seeing today, albeit with different manifestations. The disillusionment is usually already in place before the calamity, but the calamity — in our case, COVID-19 — accelerates this preexisting trend. And this can help explain what’s going on with many American men today. Some are turning to gurus peddling genuine toxic masculinity who purport to give them power over women, while others embrace what amounts to anti-male ideologies as a perverse act of masochistic contrition. While the gamut of modern thought on masculinity is, of course, very different from the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, the social psychological forces at play that made the latter so compelling couldn't be more similar. Obviously, the outcomes are incomparable, but Adolf Hitler’s and Andrew Tate’s persuasive performative resentment is why people were (and are) drawn to them.
The clairvoyant and mentalist Erik Jan Hanussen — born Hermann Steinschneider — was the most famous occultist in post-WWI Germany. Despite being Jewish he enjoyed the company of the Nazis in the early days of the Third Reich, likely including Adolf Hitler himself.
However, if we continue exploring the historical analogy, there is some good news and perhaps even a framework on how to move forward. In the 1940s, liberal democratic values essentially (though not inevitably) won the day. While it might be tempting — especially for the culturally conservative among us — to proclaim that these values are what have brought men so low in the 21st century, that's a mistake. Liberal values gave us LGBT rights, women’s rights, and civil rights. Who’s to say that they can't also help men forge a new path? The only tested and proven way to successfully address such a crisis is through liberal values, which emphasize the fact that improvements do not have to be zero-sum. Promoting female excellence doesn't have to be at the expense of basic male well-being. Similarly, promoting male excellence doesn't have to be at the expense of female gains.
The task, however, is daunting. As most of us know, it's not easy to simply stop feeling the negative things we do. Oftentimes, it takes far more than reading a book about “rules for life” to overcome depression or resentment, especially when it’s rooted in unfortunate realities, such as those we see playing out in dating and sex. The percentage of men aged 18 to 24 not having sex rose from nearly 19% in 2000 to nearly 31% in 2018, while young women not having sex rose from 15% to 19% over that same span. The Washington Post reported in 2019 that more than half of young people didn’t have a romantic partner at all. Pew Research found in 2020 that 52% of young adults still live with their parents — an all-time high since the Great Depression.
The percentage of young people not having sex increased from 2000 to 2018, according to a study published in JAMA Network.
Advice from figures like Jordan Peterson — such as not blaming one’s own single status on women — while helpful to some young men in desperate need of guidance, is insufficient on its own. “Cleaning your room” isn’t necessarily going to solve your problems when your room is your childhood one. This kind of arrested development can stunt men’s motivation to improve their lot in life. More than that, it can lock men into a narrow worldview where their conception of masculinity is defined by stereotypical traditional gender roles. This blinds men to the deeper realization that gender roles are what we make them, rather than stuck in place in the way they have become stuck in mom and dad’s basement.
For men today, the path forward involves recognizing that we don't need to inhabit traditional gender roles to be whole people. Just as bisexual and gay men have rewritten the narratives around masculinity and sexuality, men as a whole will need to rewrite the narratives around masculinity and work. As the data reported by Richard Reeves shows, there is no sign that the rapid advancement of women into the professional world is slowing down. Given this, we, as a society, must adapt — and not just men. Women have just as much of a role to play in lifting men out of misery. In a society with a much more egalitarian distribution of opportunity and resources across the sexes, women’s expectations of men, a holdover from the before-times, will need to be adjusted accordingly. They will, at the very least, need to let go of their desire for the stereotypical breadwinner, since society does not offer most of them the opportunity to fulfill this role even if they desperately want to.
Many of the gender roles men inhabit have no bearing on manliness apart from the kind of physical distinctions between men and women described in that opening scene of Roger Dodger. The raw physical power men hold is less relevant to their place in society with every passing day. It’s merely a product of their anatomy. In a world increasingly shaped by technology, our bodies no longer dictate our roles — we do. This realization opens the door to the kind of individual liberation enabled by liberal principles, and it’s what can help reshape the discourse on gender roles for the better. Would it not be preferable, for example, to encourage men to see themselves as just as capable of being caretakers as their female counterparts? Stay-at-home dads are increasingly common, and contrary to what some seem to believe, it's by no means a solely “leftist thing” to be a male caretaker. Indeed, entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy recounts in his book Woke Inc. (2021) how he and his wife came to the mutual conclusion that he would stay at home to take care of their young son while she continued working as a physician during the height of the pandemic.
It may always be true that, generally speaking, males will be more interested in things, and females will be more interested in people. Or that average males will always be able to lift heavier weight while females will always be better at reading social cues. This doesn't mean that these differences must necessarily define our social roles. An engineer is just as capable of taking care of a child as a nurse, and a woman can just as easily be an engineer as a man can be a nurse. Promoting gender neutrality in the hiring process is something employers can easily do. Evolving gender norms will do nothing to diminish men's masculinity. In fact, it will help men realize that their potential for success in life is not determined merely by their perceived gender role. And much like the women who fought for a seat at the table before them, it will help them overcome such stifling standards and live fulfilling lives.
Published Jun 12, 2023
Updated Jun 19, 2023
