The Trouble With Men
Personal Perspective: Male social and academic development needs attention.
Updated November 9, 2024 Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
Key points
- Males are falling behind academically and socially.
- Growing numbers of underachieving men may pose a risk to societal stability.
- Multiple factors contribute to deteriorating male achievement.
Men are falling behind. Dramatically. They (we) risk unemployability and irrelevancy in our ever-modernizing society. Please understand that, after millennia of domination and oppression, I cannot, and will not, advocate for pity, or tilting the playing field even further in their (our) favor, but I fear for our collective future if we don't somehow address the relative implosion in male achievement and behavior.
The gap between female and male academic performance is substantial and widening, and will soon translate into a similar gap in graduate degrees, employment opportunities, career success, and earnings. While the spectacular ascent of women over the past several decades must be heralded and celebrated, nothing threatens its continued rise more than the prospect of growing hordes of idle, ignorant, disaffected men.
Idle Men Are Dangerous to Societal Stability
Simple reflection on crime statistics (let alone world history) leaves no doubt that young men have a propensity toward disruptive and violent behavior in response to fear, want, denial, disappointment, disillusionment, frustration, failure, embarrassment, and perhaps even boredom. As the world accelerates in generating careers dependent on cognitive capacity over physicality, and team functionality over competitive individualism, men in their current iteration are bound to lose further ground. A resultant backlash seems inevitable. One can argue that we are already witnessing the gathering storm of a disastrous male response in the proliferation of misogynistic sites and personalities across the social media universe. What is more, entire political parties seem to be embracing policies of institutionalized misogyny and the curtailing of long-standing women's rights.
Bringing Men Into Modern Society
The solution, which I do not profess to hold, will be complex and will require open, evidence-based, apolitical discourse (good luck). I suspect that it will require an acknowledgment that men and women are somewhat different in cognition and behavior—be it through nature and/or nurture. And that optimization of performance, and the development of life and social skills, will be different between the sexes.
Ideally, men will be instilled with the necessary social and career aptitudes to integrate into our modern, collaborative, information-driven society. And, as women assume their rightful place in the upper echelons of society, they will need to do what men have failed at: find a way to welcome and include their counterparts in the continued elevation and betterment of society. This will require addressing some of the traditional attitudes and practices of our past. Let's consider some.
Men and Women Are Wired Differently
There is mounting evidence that significant differences exist between men and women in neurodevelopment, neuro-connectivity, and neuro-functionality (albeit manifesting as overlapping bell-shaped curves). Insisting that such differences do not exist may lead to inefficient maximization of each individual's potential and their ability to integrate into social and career settings.
Primary and Secondary Schooling May Ignore Variation in Learning Styles and Intellectual Development
Large lecture-based, single-subject classes with individualized seating remains a component of American education. Female students have tended to at least survive in such rigid learning environments. Males often wind up falling behind and developing disciplinary challenges due to an inability to sustain focus in such settings.
Boys Don't Read
The power of reading has not dissipated despite our full submersion into the digital era. The ability to absorb and assimilate complex interactive, societal, cultural, emotional, historical, artistic, and scientific perspectives is maximized by reading—lots and lots of reading. And I mean full texts rather than curated snippets. Many girls take to this without prodding. Many boys have to be dragged into it, falling behind early and never catching up.
The Lone Cowboy Myth
School grading, rewards, and advancement have traditionally been predicated on competitive individual performance. What is more, American children are subjected to repeated "lone cowboy" mythology and idolization. But our modern lives are interdependent. Collegiality, collaboration, cooperation, tolerance, respect, empathy, shared leadership, team building, team advancement, and simply listening to others are indispensable skills in our modern world.
Overvaluation of Athletic Accomplishment
A C-minus male student is still saluted, exalted, and emulated if he is a football/basketball/lacrosse star. With the rise of women's sports, female athletes may enjoy similar adulation, but are generally still expected to be proficient in their studies. Very few high-school athletes will go on to remunerative athletic careers. Thus, the athletes who continue to focus on their academics will go on to acquire marketable skills, while the others are left with nothing but trophies.
Screen Time
The digital world has played its own role in derailing male performance. While social media appears to be more toxic to the emotional development of girls, excessive gaming is decrementing male academic achievement. In addition, it is likely contributing to the growth of misogyny and violent responses to stressors. A typical child of either sex today spends less time interacting with friends and classmates, less time in nature, and less time in unsupervised activities, stunting their overall maturation and development.
A Culture of Toxic Masculinity
Boys are bombarded with archaic depictions of ideal male physique and behavior. Steroid-augmented, almost comical, hyper-muscularity is held up as the ideal. Rugged individualism is worshipped. Strength is defined in terms of fighting ability. Aggressive responses to disputes are celebrated. Domination is favored over negotiation. Emotionality is condemned as a weakness, as are many other "traditionally female" traits and attributes.
Unhealthy Interactive/Sexual Influences
Extensive, longitudinal sex education is on the retreat in our schools and is being legislated against in many states. Opportunities for unscripted, unsupervised, person-to-person interface—that is, "hanging out"—is a diminishing experience for many children and young adults. Yet our young have unlimited access to porn that is often vituperative, regressive, abusive, antisocial, unrealistic, callous, and potentially dangerous. The net effect is often ignorance about the entity itself and the emotional and physical needs of others.
Protracted Adolescence
We seem to accept and even expect delayed male entry into adult behavioral functionality, often buffering its ramifications for them. This risks a protracted adolescent mental map of life with a resultant narcissism and avoidance of responsibility.
Some possible solutions in a future piece.
References
Banks, M. (2024) Ask Teenage Boys If They Use Muscle-Building Supplements. Medscape Medical News. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/ask-teenage-boys-if-they-use-muscle-building-supplements-2024a1000df6?ecd=wnl_tp10_daily_240729_MSCPEDIT_etid6706080&uac=324316DT&impID=6706080
Ficek-Tani, B. et al. (2023) Sex differences in default mode network connectivity in healthy aging adults. Cereb Cortex. 2023 May 9;33(10):6139-6151. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhac491.
Chen, J. et al. (2024) Deep learning with diffusion MRI as in vivo microscope reveals sex-related differences in human white matter microstructure. Sci Rep 14, 9835 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-60340-y
Elliot, L. (2021) Brain Development and Physical Aggression. Current Anthropology Volume 62, Supplement 23, February 2021
Muppalla, S., et al. (2023) Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development: An Updated Review and Strategies for Management. Cureus. 2023 Jun; 15(6): e40608.
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