Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness.

This article is long so for now I've only skimmed it. I'll go back through and read the post thoroughly this evening and see if I have anything meaningful to add as a direct response to the author.

Anecdotally I will say that I acutely feel the lack of attention society gives to this topic. In my hunger for male role models I've searched for books and have been shocked at the imbalance. My local bookstore has 15 shelves of women's studies compared to just 1 shelf (half full) of men's studies. It's not surprising that figures like Jordan Peterson are able to capitalize on that absence.

I'll also say, cautiously, that I am not always comfortable bringing the topic up. In the USA at least we have decades of what I'd call "course correction" to give women the space, the rights, the recognition they were wrongfully denied for so long. I don't know when it's right to say "what about men?" when we still have so far to go with women's equality. The long term ideal for society should be that we give all genders an equal amount of serious contemplation, but in the short term can we do that without going backwards on women's rights? How do we balance all of this?

Edit: prefacing this comment with what I think could help with this “crisis of masculinity,” or whatever you want to call it. It would be a huge boon if social skills especially around dating, navigating sex, consent, etc was taught. Also some instruction on what is considered “attractive”. It doesn’t have to be coded as masculine or feminine. There are plenty of gender agnostic traits that are fairly universally attractive. Good hygiene, physical fitness, being nice (but not being a pushover), good posture, being funny, etc. All of this instruction would ideally be pretty gender agnostic or have groups flip the script. Girls could benefit from learning how difficult it can be to be expected to lead and make the “first”move.

As a side note, the reason that male-improvement has skewed right is because the left has actively disparaged masculinity, and not provided any positive “alternative” for boys and young men

End edit

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A pretty good read, and yet I feel like throughout the author reiterates that they don’t really get it. At least they seem to be curious and open to learning

The left has made it pretty clear that putting any resources towards helping boys and men is.. well not evil, but definitely not welcome. Any resources that goes towards helping males is taking away resources from women or actively pushing them down.

With this hostility towards male improvement, it’s no wonder the characters that rise up in that space are more likely to go against the grain and in many ways be abhorrent or despicable.

the web of misogynistic communities known as the “manosphere.”

There is a lot of misogyny in the manosphere, but the author defining it as a web of misogynistic communities shows that they’re unable to see a pro-male community as a good thing.

Also, any group of advocacy that grows large enough is going to have issues of bigotry. See TERFs, and the presence of misandry in the popular feminism movement.

Are we really worrying that men feel a little emasculated because their female classmates are doing well?

Thanks to @Protected for pointing out to me that the author was using this to demonstrate the backwardness of the leftist zeitgeist, contrasting from their current position.

There may be other instances of me confusing example of the zeitgeist for the author’s thought. Even with just this one misinterpretation, it raises my view of what was frankly already a good article even if my misinterpretation had been true.

No, but we should be worried about the earlier cited statistics about men making up about a 7:10 ratio of all bachelor degrees, and responsible for over 2/3s of the drop in college enrollment

This also evokes the trope of the left of gaslighting men into thinking that they couldn’t possibly have any issues that aren’t linked to their own faults or the patriarchy. Are men doing worse in classrooms because their needs have been neglected? Of course not! It’s their fragile masculinity causing a rouse

A mainstream reluctance to define or speak up for men

Nail on the head here. And that reluctance is slathered throughout the article by the author.

But if trying to smash the patriarchy has left a vacuum in our ideal of masculinity

A bit of a rant on the word patriarchy here. To me that word has been overused and overloaded that it’s almost lost all meaning.

That, and also phrases like this (smash the patriarchy) I think are actively harmful towards gender equality and progress. This message reads as anti-male, even if that’s not the intent. What a great way to build an intersectional movement /s

It is harder to be a man today, and in many ways, that is a good thing: Finally, the freer sex is being held to a higher standard.

Again, circling back to the idea that nothing pro-male could possibly be good. It’s a zero-sum game, where making men’s lives harder is good for women, and making men’s lives easier is bad for women.

Sorry this post is a bit cynical. It’s a bit venty as it’s stuff I’m not really comfortable voicing in person for fear of being seen as a right-wing lunatic

P.S. I’m not intending to attack the author. In fact I’m glad they wrote this article because these issues do need more of a spotlight. The blind spots that the author has are common in the left and progressive circles. Hopefully progressive circles can evolve to serve the needs of everyone, and not see everything as a zero-sum game.

I've read this article and all the comments as well as this FD Signifier video (youtube link), and I thought I'd put down some thoughts here.

So the topic of this article is that men are socially and perhaps existentially lost. There seems to be a loose concensus that this is because men lack resources to help them figure out how to be good men.

I have previously discussed my distaste with the concept of masculinity, and here I would like to specify that the thing I dislike about it specifically is that men feel required to project masculine traits regardless of any health or other possible negative outcomes of the actions that come as a result. And so I would like to present the idea that men are not lacking in resources to help them, but rather they are prevented from taking advantage of those resources because they have been stigmatized by masculine ideas.

I have heard from so many men over the years how they are terrified about going to see a doctor - both medical and psychological. This taboo is one of life's greatest ironies; medicine is quite literally built on top of men, to the point where we are continuing to discover medical treatments that are fine on men that have unintended side effects when done on women.

I strongly suspect this is because of how boys are treated in childhood. Children learn how to navigate their feelings through communicating with others, and naturally they need a lot of adult guidance. But while girls get those important conversations with the women in their lives, boys tend not to. When boys are acting out - an obvious sign of emotional distress - they are often simply punished to correct the behavior, or ignored ("Boys will be boys"). Boys quite simply do not see the kind of patience that girls do.

I kind of hate to bring up this term because of how often people complain about what they think the term means instead of the actual meaning, but the reason for both of those issues is likely toxic masculinity. Seeking help is weekness. Talking through a boy's problem is coddling. Getting hurt is just a part of growing up. Boys will be boys. The problem is our culture and traditions, and nobody seems to ever want to change those. A very good first step is SEL, but conservative reactionaries want to stop it.

That's why I recommend people try to get rid of the idea of masculinity altogether. Frankly I don't see how it helps anyone, but I can find so many reasons why people are hurt because of it. I know that some people will read this and think that I'm trying to attack men in some way, but I assure you this couldn't be further from the truth.

I was bullied for a long time when I was a kid, but in highschool I came out of the closet, and for some reason my life - at least when it came to school - got dramatically better. Not only did the bullying stop, but I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Of course, part of that was being able to be frank and open with people, but in retrospect I think it's because coming out had also freed me from the social expectation to be an ideal man. I didn't have to become a father, I didn't have to impress girls, I didn't have to be good at physical things, and I didn't have to pretend the things I was experiencing were not affecting me. And that's what I want for all men and boys. To let them know that you don't have to feel trapped by other's expectations; that you can focus on learning who you really are and not try to be what others want you to be. The queer community tends to be so much better with these issues that "are the straights OK?" is a very popular meme. And as the article mentions, this isn't really something that is limited to men, either.

This article really touched on a lot of what I've been feeling watching my younger male family members trying to find themselves as they grow into adulthood. They have expressed to me that they feel frustrated and lost, feeling like the world has labeled them as toxic, without provided them a vision of how they can be a "non-toxic" male. I have done my best to talk with them about right wing ideas of masculinity, going over exactly why I disagree with Jordan peterson or whoever, but at the end of the day I can empathize with why they are drawn to those ideas.

I know that when I was younger I definitely struggled with the idea of what it means to be a man, and there were times that I was probably a little too close to getting sucked into the "manosphere." I look back on the time I spent reading content from "TheRedPill" and am a little terrified by how many of those ideas seemed reasonable to me at the time. I was fortunate enough to have a few role models that allowed me to eventually see that content for what it was, but I can't firmly say that without them I would have found who I wanted to be.

I think this is something that needs to be talked about more, and after reading this article I think I'm actually motivated to try and be a better and more accessible role model to young men around me. I don't have any sons of my own, but I think I'm going to try some way to volunteer and connect with young men that are wrestling with these issues. I'm struggling to come up with exactly how this would look, but I'm curious to see if anyone else has ideas on how we can be accessible and positive role models.

The author — who certainly seems to be worth reading further — did an excellent job discussing the Jordan Peterson phenomena, but ultimately seems to fall back into the issue brought up approximately halfway through: it's much easier to discuss the problem than it is to lay out a path forward.

I jotted down my thoughts as I was reading through the piece.

Because men still dominate leadership positions in government and corporations, many assume they’re doing fine and bristle at male complaint. After all, all 45 U.S. presidents have been male, and men still make up more than two-thirds of Congress. A 2020 analysis of the S&P 500 found that there were more CEOs named Michael or James than there were female CEOs, period.

This seems to parallel the "Chad" line of thinking about relationships: a small percentage of winners win everything.

But his advice about how to become an “alpha male” attracted an enormous following of teenage boys, to the point that schools were circulating information about how to counteract his messages in the classroom.

It makes sense to me that this is growing. If men believe that only the alpha dogs at the top are really the happy ones then they'll go all-in on learning how to behave in whatever way they think has the best chance of getting them there.

Once you factor in the biased lense of social media, prestige posting, and curating one's online image you can see how these effects would be increased, especially among those who aren't the best critical thinkers — which is exactly the population most likely to struggle in the first place.

Meanwhile, politicians such as Hawley are eager to ascribe men’s increasing dysfunction to malice on the part of women, progressives and “elites,” instead of the true cause: major social, economic and cultural changes

This seems rather simplistic.

Of course, Hawley et al is idiotically simplistic. But simply pointing to major changes in society as the sole cause ignores the degree to which "women, progressives, and elites" have advanced some of these changes. And while "malice" is of course largely nonsense, could not the increasing dysfunction of [lower functioning] men not be influenced by the callous disregard of women, progressives, and elites as they pursue their own ends?

Galloway leaned into the screen. “My view is that, for masculinity, a decent place to start is garnering the skills and strength that you can advocate for and protect others with. If you’re really strong and smart, you will garner enough power, influence, kindness to begin protecting others. That is it. Full stop. Real men protect other people.”

Richard Reeves, in our earlier conversation, had put it somewhat more subtly. “I try to raise my boys” — he has three — “to have the confidence to ask a girl out, if that’s their inclination; the grace to accept no for an answer; and the responsibility to make sure that, either way, she gets home safely.” His recipe for masculine success echoed Galloway’s: proactiveness, agency, risk-taking and courage, but with a pro-social cast.

Neither of these are much of a sales pitch.

Sure, they sound great. But no struggling young man who needs to be told to make his bed is going to suddenly be motivated by the idea of bravely facing rejection and seeing a girl home safely. This alternate manliness project is going to need a much better narrative than that.

What would creating a positive vision of masculinity look like? Recognizing distinctiveness but not pathologizing it. Finding new ways to valorize it and tell a story that is appealing to young men and socially beneficial

The author recognizes that narrative appeal is essential, but doesn't seem to have the insight that the projects fail to articulate one.

We can find ways to work with the distinctive traits and powerful stories that already exist — risk-taking, strength, self-mastery, protecting, providing, procreating. We can recognize how real and important they are. And we can attempt to make them pro-social — to help not just men but also women, and to support the common good.

The constant return to concerns about pro-social ends is part of the reason why. I don't think I've ever read an article on feminism that returns so frequently to the concern about feminism working towards pro-social ends. Stop assuming that you're conscripting men towards your existing goals and start by articulating an alternative model of masculinity that's good for men.

That doesn't mean those goals are problematic, far from it. But if you want to help men then you need to start with a focus on helping men, not a focus on helping men not to be a problem for society.

I’ve never felt the need to know what it is to be a man. Maybe it’s because I have a great dad and he’s all the role model I’ve needed but I’ve never hungered for any additional male support in understanding my own identity. Maybe that just makes me lucky.

I don’t really think about my own gender very much. It sort of just self expresses and I don’t worry or think about it.

This was fascinating and insightful. It hit a lot of solid points, points I’ve thought about but could never articulate as eloquently as an actual writer.

There were a few points I keep coming back to. Firstly, I had no idea so many young men are without father figures, and how that number has doubled since the 60s. Another point was how in the past, men’s worth was tied to things like providing for the community and his family. In our modern age this is either irrelevant or out of reach. When you include other factors like having instant gratification of every sort right at our finger tips, it doesn’t help with creating a sense of purpose in young men. The author also mentions how society is now telling men to be kind and feminine, while (and the author admits this) that it’s also not attractive in men when women are looking for a partner. Creating a mold that modern men simply cannot fit into.

If I can speak anecdotally for a moment; I see remnants of this problem in my close friends group. All three of us are 30, two of us are in long term committed relationships and one is single much to his dismay. He lacks goals and is a sensitive guy. I feel bad but I'm almost sure, especially after reading this article that this is what hurts his prospects. He’s big into video games and lives with his parents so his immediate needs are met. No need to take risks, even though he has the safety net to do so. There’s a plethora of other issues he has, like having higher standards than what he should be aiming for, and an unhealthy obsession with material items that I find childish.

It frustrates me to see the other friend in our group have a baby and loving family, my fiance and I buy a house, while our other friend sits at home and plays video games and smokes weed like we're still in high school. I have a cousin who is younger, but in everything but appearance is a spitting image of my friend and the same situation he's in.

They're both quite affluent and it makes me wonder whether it's their father figures that failed them. I've rambled enough now but it was a big article that left me with lots of thoughts. My conjecture could be entirely off base. And while I'm sure I made my friend sound insufferable, he can also be smart funny and insightful. I just wish he had more masculine purpose, as the article said it's something we don't get to talk about.

Kind of hate to make a top-level comment what with all the great discussion and insight already here, but this comment doesn't really fit into any of the current conversations.

I'm a man, I guess, though I don't know if I'll feel comfortable calling myself one. I'm young, 25, and like so many others have no relationship with my father. He was (and presumably still is) a narcissistic and manipulative person with a very specific view of what it meant to be a man. Very unique, I know, and my childhood was definitely not as bad as many!

My mother did divorce and remarry to my step-dad. He's great, I love him, he's been there for me much more than my bio dad has, despite knowing me a shorter time and having no impetus to be so kind.

I bring this up because one part of the article that really struck me was in the embedded video where the author asked several men about who they looked up to. All of them mention a father. That's great for people who had a good dad to look up to. Again, my step-dad is great, I love him to death, but not because he's the ideal of what I think a man should be. He's my family and so, despite his flaws, I love him. But I don't model my manhood after him.

That's... actually a little difficult to say, just because I know it would hurt him if he knew. It is the truth, though. I thought about it after watching the clip and while reading through the rest of the article. I do not have a man that I look up to as a model of masculinity. Is that why I feel so lost? Outcast, unable to pinpoint an identity for myself?

I've never felt much of a connection to traditional masculinity. I've never been competitive. I don't yearn to lead or have my name on awards. I never thrived in sports (I always got bored or too scared about getting hit by the ball or other players 😅). Never had a huge drive to be a provider or even seek out money beyond what I need to survive.

I'm lucky enough now to live in an apartment with my fiancée, have a stable job that I love and do well in, and am enrolled in classes to advance my career. But when I move on and I work with vulnerable kids that ask me, "What does it mean to be a man?", what will I tell them? I don't even know what to tell myself!

I digress. All this is to say that this was an interesting read and gave me a lot to think about. I disagree with some of what was said, especially about trying to embrace traditionally masculine traits in a pro-social way. I don't know about all that. The comments about sex, in particular. The idea of teaching young men and boys to "be good" by using the chance of having sex with desirable women left a sour taste in my mouth. That echoes the same misogynist sentiments we hear from the Tates and their ilk. Not every urge that we feel should necessarily be glorified. I'm not saying we should teach boys that sexual urges are bad, but there is a certain benefit(? I can't think of the exact word I want...) to self-regulation.

I would be curious to hear what the author believes is a good female role model. Because I'm pretty sure it'd basically be a sample of gender neutral, and largely economic class based, goals (wealth, success, fitness). All of which could pretty easily translate to a male role model.

A really long article, unfortunately will have to read it more thoroughly later but:

A bit more than 20 years ago, anthropologist David D. Gilmore published “Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity,” a cross-cultural study of manliness around the world. He found that almost all societies had a concept of “real,” “true” or “adult” manhood that was seen as a valuable and indispensable ideal. But masculinity had to be earned — and proved.

This is something that, even in articles like this is something that I feel like isn't quite touched upon enough. There is this very real pressure of having to proof your worth. And not just that, it needs to be maintained.

If you use a search engine and search 'men ambition' or something to the likes, you'll see the results. It tends to be either about 'what to do about men who aren't ambitious?' (maybe let them live their lives...?) or something about why women should also be allowed the same ambitions as men.

We still live in a culture where somehow, men are quite often expected to push for the top when only a few will get there. And it defines their worth as a man. At the same time, within that same concept we treat as zero sum, women enter the game.

And that women get more and more emancipated is a great thing. But the fact that the male gender roles around self-worth are not tackled at the same time leaves a real gap. And that is quite often ignored.

And unfortunately, the right, and especially the far-right, plays into this. Do we really have to wonder why, especially younger boys, are so attracted to that space? When it provides them the promise of worth that feels like it's being taken away?

Personally, I find the idea that any individual, let it be men, women, straight, gay, whatever, have to proof their worth through arbitrary societal values absolutely disgusting. Human lives are just that, human lives.

Ambition can be a great thing. But it should not be a measure of how much worth someone is.

This reminds me of a couple past Tildes topics with interesting discussions: 1 “Men have no friends and women bear the burden” & 2 “The intellectual we deserve – Jordan Peterson's popularity is the sign of a deeply impoverished political and intellectual landscape”.

After reading most of the comments here, I’d like to raise a question that might catch some flak:

To what extent is this problem (men being lost relative to women) greater online than in real life?

The article has lots of anecdotes that don't really line up with my experiences. The data they do highlight is interesting, but I’d like to present some additional details straight from the paper (pdf):

Over the period from 1999 to 2018, the overall annual employment-to-population ratio fell from
64.3 percent to 60.4 percent, a decline of 3.8 percentage points.3 Employment rates fell for both
sexes, though the decline was steeper for men (5.3 percentage points) than for women (2.5
percentage points)

Edit: Looks like the more relevant data for young men suggests a 4 percentage point delta:

The employment rate for each of the reported 10-year age groups within the 25 to 54 year old age band dropped by about 2 percentage points between 1999 and 2018. Men age 25 to 34 experienced a substantial decline (4.2 percentage points), whereas the employment rate for women in that age range was little changed

So we're talking about a 2.8 percentage point delta, which is probably partially explained by some of the factors they highlight that disproportionately target men:

We also conclude that the Veteran Affairs Disability Compensation
program likely has contributed to a reduction in the employment to population ratio, on the order
of perhaps an additional 0.07 percentage point
...
Another factor that may have played a role is the rise in incarceration and the resulting growth in
the number of individuals with prison records. Our best guess is that this factor has contributed
to a decline in the EPOP on the order of 0.13 percentage points.
...
We do not attempt to assign a magnitude to the possible contribution of improved leisure
technology, in particular video gaming technology, but call attention to the provocative
hypothesis that has been advanced about its possible effects on young men’s participation. This
is an issue deserving additional attention, along with the consumption enhancing (and labor
reducing) role that (endogenously) changing social norms and the increased likelihood of living
with parents and other family members could be playing for young men.

These factors are also dwarfed by factors faced by both sexes, such as factory offshoring to China and robotification of the work force.

The original article also touches on university degrees granted, which, while an issue, also makes sense when you consider that the largest growth in bachelor degrees awarded in the last ten years has been in health-related fields.

I'm not suggesting that men aren't facing any problems, but I'm also not convinced that discussions of toxic masculinity, feminism, etc. etc. which, in my opinion, largely take place online for most people, are part of the problem. Broadly speaking, a lot of the culture war is invisible (in my country at least, I understand there are some heavily impacted areas) in daily life in general, and I don't think some aspects of this are any different.

Perhaps my experience differs, but I've lived in liberal cities and conservative small towns and nowhere have I observed people shy away from traditionally masculine behaviour nor have I seen people trying to classify it as toxic except in cases where someone is being a jerk. Boys don't seem to lack role models anymore so than I did as a kid, or have less dreams or aspirations than I did.

I will also add that I do think young men in general have to deal with a lot of social anxiety regarding being attractive enough, fit enough, good enough at sex etc. etc. when dating for them is largely an unknown or relatively new experience. But I'm pretty sure that has always been the case though -- and those of us who are older can certainly attest to some of the naivety present in our younger selves, something hopefully everyone eventually learns for themselves. Women also have no shortage of social anxiety they must contend with, but I do think the problems men face in this regard are less part of the social gestalt therefore less sympathized.

I try to raise my boys to have the confidence to ask a girl out, if that’s their inclination; the grace to accept no for an answer; and the responsibility to make sure that, either way, she gets home safely.

I really like this.

I just want to point out that this is a really well-written article. I read it all last night and went to sleep thinking about it. I started reading without seeing who the author was, which meant I didn't have any bias from the outset. I always strive to be unbiased, but we easily fall prey to it. I think the author did an excellent job of being balanced, reflective, rational and informative.

As others have said, I think the title was slightly clickbaity because the author does not really provide any map out of the wilderness. I myself have never really cared about the idea of masculinity, although I have been acutely aware at times that I don't represent the ideal that many used to and perhaps still do strive for. The whole idea of being a protector and provider seems very antiquated and very skewed towards those with physical strength. There are of course many other ways to take on these roles besides using strength, but the mythos endures among men and women.

Anyway, my main point was that this article is a very interesting and insightful read. It's worth taking the time to read it all.

Does anyone have a non-paygated link? Interested in reading it, but not enough to subscribe to WaPo. ;)