Does Anyone Care About Men’s Struggles? - Richard Reeves

Richard V. Reeves is a writer, scholar and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Men are falling behind in education, employment and family life. They're underachieving in school, dropping out of the labour market and being less useful around the house more than ever. And this isn't simply cultural as it's happening all over the world, the problem is deeper than that - it's structural.

Expect to learn why there are twice as many female fighter pilots compared with male kindergarten teachers, why a male needs to be 24 to have the same impulse control as a 10 year old girl, where the term toxic masculinity actually came from, whether a man's gain is actually woman's loss, the problem of promoting men's issues in the press and much more...

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Extra Stuff:

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00:00 Intro
00:20 Origin of ‘Toxic Masculinity’
04:20 Why Are Women Told to be More Masculine?
11:30 The Decline of Men in Education
20:24 Gap Between Male & Female Teachers
27:27 Solutions for the Education Imbalance
32:14 Why are Men leaving the Labour Market?
46:36 Expanding the Role of Fatherhood
58:48 The ‘Checked-out’ Men
1:04:48 Men’s Rights Vs Women’s Rights
1:13:04 Where to Find Richard

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[ChrisWillx]

This episode is fascinating. Enjoy. Here’s the timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:20 Origin of ‘Toxic Masculinity’
04:20 Why Women Are Told to be More Masculine?
11:30 The Decline of Men in Education
20:24 Gap Between Male & Female Teachers
27:27 Solutions for the Education Imbalance
32:14 Why are Men leaving the Labour Market?
46:36 Expanding the Role of Fatherhood
58:48 The ‘Checked-out’ Men
1:04:48 Men’s Rights Vs Women’s Rights
1:13:04 Where to Find Richard

[jennetal.]

“Men are being erased, women most affected”

[MeneerHerculePoirot]

"Does anyone care about men's struggles?"

No.

[thomascummings]

I have been a engineering middle school teacher for 13 years in a very affluent, Massachusetts town, and I can tell you absolutely you guys are correct. I was told multiple times per year that I should put up more pictures of girls in my room, I should encourage more girls to become engineers and scientist, and that the girls were in a deficit and needed to be pushed forward, many times at the expense of the boys, but that was never said outright. when I brought up the statistics about the 60/40 split educational attainment I was either told that I was wrong I was misinformed, or it just fell on deaf ears. Almost all the teachers in the school are female, and the whole culture of the school and educational system is very female, feminine oriented. If the boys can’t sit still and do their work, they are medicated or disciplined. The male energy always seem to be the problem and no one thinks about how to capitalize on it and use it to educate boys, they are continually talk to act more like girls, so they’re easier for the educational system to handle.

[mikeaustin]

It's disheartening to me that the vast majority of written and verbal discussion about "men's problems" starts from the assumption that the only purpose of men is to do things for women and that men have no intrinsic value just by virtue of being men. "The declining utility of males." Utility for whom? Women and children. If you start from this assumption, all your research and its findings are biased by your "internalized misandry".

[Stukkeman]

I’ve worked in HR organisational development for over 15 years, mostly leadership, culture and high-perfomance. The field is so anti-male that I’m exploring leaving the field. When I was running my own business, I was repeatedly told (“off the record”) that organisation decision makers wouldn’t work with male consultants. As an employee, I’ve literally been declined work many times “we all think you’d be perfect for the role but our team is all female and we are concerned that they might feel uncomfortable with a man in the team”. Technically illegal though in practice not, I’ve explored legal recourse, yet it’s impossible to prove as it’s always verbally over the phone, so no action can reasonably be taken.

I recently interviewed for a role and during the interview learned the organisation of 1, 600 was 72% female, female CEO and 80% female executive. When I asked about top priorities, I was told “We still have so much more to do to advance woman at work.” I genuinely asked “Given (the stats), would you please help me understand what success looks like?” That was clearly the undiscussable topic and taboo question and the job killer.

[alaricgoldkuhl]

I've been the primary carer for our kids since birth as my wife was career obsessed. When we divorced, I left with nothing, but was still the full time career. I'm the worst person in the world because I refused to get a job, believing as I did that every child deserves a parent at home who is there just for them.
Everywhere I went I'd get the disapproving looks of "here comes the useless bum who's leeching off his ex wife." I can tell you 100% that there is no equality when it comes to parenthood.

[jomurphy]

As a (female) teacher I have championed young men and women for thirty years and am absolutely horrified at what I see. Contemporary ideology is pulling men and women apart in the most shallow, brutally stupid, psychology-free way and to witness this, (especially after years of encouraging great engagement with, understanding and celebration of each other from both sexes), is soul-destroying. I too utterly condemn the term 'toxic masculinity' and to those who criticise me I reply that they should first define for me the term 'toxic femininity'. What we need is a new movement headed up by strong men and women who want to be together, who want to celebrate and build on that. It will happen.

[augmenautus]

When I worked at Statefarm, the annual diversity report was released, and they announced that corporate (not the agents' offices) was now over 60% female. The conclusion was "we still need to do more to hire and support women" and I was just like wtf.

[thatwasprettyneat]

I'm glad this guy is defending boys/men, but in a way I think he's part of the problem. He's being too reticent on the differences between men and women. Not acknowledging general biological trends and statistics is what causes all of this trouble. The notion that men and women are the same and they should somehow be 50/50 in all professions, or even in job participation in general, feeds these societal problems.

[stephensharper]

Richard Reeves "there's no evidence of discrimination against men"

Also Richard Reeves "massive concerted intentional effort in public policy and massive media campaigns to break the doors down for women and no such thing for men"

You ever hear the song walking contradiction by Green Day?

[kazstrankowski]

A great quote I heard a business woman say "When women say they want equality, they really want preferential treatment"

[bwake]

Elementary education is pretty much the definitional case of a hostile workplace environment, for men.

[BigBenn]

“Nobody predicted…” but plenty of academics and politicians were so sure of themselves in the first instance, and now it sounds like they’re absolving themselves of any responsibility.

[FlirtForschung]

When he says around 19.00 that there is no discrimination against boys/men isn’t he kind discounting the fact that there are all kinds of quota that dictate to prefer women for university/job spots?

[fedup]

I don't feel left "behind", I just feel left. Like society went one direction (towards a clif) and I went another.

[JankAt]

As a guy I can relate, schooling being forced down my throat with studying, exams, daily homework, sitting and writing an essay for hours felt like torture when all I wanted to do was go outside and be in the trees. After graduating from uni finally finally free but can't come to terms with sitting inside in front of a computer for most of my days. So long story short I'm a Fedex driver and like it because I get to be outside and burning energy, don't make a whole lot but can pay my bills and I'd say have some decent job security but it's fine while I'm still young.

[flyingmonkeyknat]

I love how he says there is no evidence of discrimination and then cites the evidence of discrimination against boys and men.

[danevans]

Absolutely we live in a society that considers men as disposable.
I was going to type a full paragraph describing my rise, then sudden fall.
I'll sum it up as this. I went from a husband, father of three, and pharmacist to a jobless (while trying to meet or exceed my custody time with children), homeless, ill with internal organ diseases, and ostracized by community - shell of a man. I have no purpose. I'm disabled. My ex had been combative upto 10 years post-divorce and turned my children against me.
Tell me why I should give a damn about anything, especially the condition of any non-familial female. And your nauseous presumption that women are the better and more nurturing gender of parent is just reprehensible. The only thing my ex could do more than I was breastfeed. I was orders of magnitude better than her in reading our children's physical and psychological needs and attending to them.... ok, I'm depressed. Bye.

[craptor]

It's incredible how utterly unattractive and turned off woman are by any guy who expresses vulnerability/sadness. When women say they want a sensitive man, they dont want you to be sensitive about YOUR emotions/feelings, they want you to be sensitive to THEIR emotions and feelings. There's not actually room in relationships for men to express their doubts or concerns and women just get upset about you being upset.