299. Why the Modern Male Is Struggling (1)

299. Richard Reeves — Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It

1 (9s):

You're listening to the Michael Scher Show.

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Hello everyone, It's Michael Schermer and it's time for another episode of the Michael Schermer Show, brought to you by Wdre. Wdre is a series of college level audio and video courses and documentaries produced and distributed by the teaching company. You know them, I always talk about them. I have two courses myself on Skepticism 1 0 1 and Conspiracies One brings you engaging educational content through short form videos, long form courses, tutorials, how-to lessons, travel logs, documentaries, and more covering every topic you've ever wondered about and many you've never thought you'd wondered about. How about this one? The Middle Ages? Here's one I'm taking right now. It's called the Medieval Legacy.

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Take a fascinating and eye-opening journey into the Middle Ages while you uncover the remarkable ways in which the medieval world still influences our thinking, our collective consciousness, and our ways of life. Indeed, really, the Dark Ages, no one at the time thought they were living in the dark ages, right? I mean, be like somebody 500 years from now saying, Oh, those people in the 21st century, they were living in the dark ages. Of course, we don't have any idea what they're gonna think about us, but as you could tell, we don't think we're living in the dark ages. Okay, so here's a few of the lectures on this one. This is, by the way, 36, 30 minute lectures. Of course, the Black Death is featured prominently in there. The medieval invention of race, question mark.

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1 (2m 59s):

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1 (3m 40s):

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1 (4m 37s):

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1 (5m 26s):

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1 (6m 10s):

All right, thanks for listening. I hope you go check it out and I'll talk to you again soon. My guest today is Richard Reeves. He is a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution where he directs the Boys and Men Project and holds the John c and Nancy D. Whitehead chair. He is the author of Dream Hoarders, How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else In The Dust, Why that is a problem and what to do about it. That was published in 2017 and he is a regular contributor, as I'm sure you've read many times in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic.

1 (6m 57s):

His new book is of Boys and Men, Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and what to do about it. So that's, by the way, Richard, that's a perfect title and subtitle. I always contend that either the title of the subtitle tell the reader what the book is about. A lot of authors try to have some clever title or subtitle and you can't figure out what it means here. It's right there on the front of Boys and Men. So let me just start right there. I think now I'm just gonna make up this response to your book. I don't know if any, if you've already ever heard this or if anyone would actually say this, but you know, what comes to mind is something along the lines of, Oh, Boohoo Boys. Now you know what it's like for girls and women for the past, oh, I don't know, 10,000 years bottom rung on top now fellas buck up and take it for a while.

1 (7m 45s):

It's our turn now. The Future is female. Okay. I dunno if anybody would actually say that, but I can imagine. You know, it's like you guys finally fall behind and now you're a bunch of wines come on,

2 (7m 58s):

Right? Yeah. Well, even if people don't say it, they may well be thinking it. And so there is this, the Tiny Violins problem, Right, And and I think it's, I think it's, I think, look, I think it's perfectly understandable reaction and I think especially given how quickly the women's movement has succeeded on so many fronts, I mean, this is, this is just unbelievably quick in terms of social change. And so I think updating our priors to say, Oh, actually enough progress has been made now for girls and women, that it's, that it's not crazy to look at the ways in which boys and men might be behind.

2 (8m 39s):

I mean, that's happened in like a lifetime, which is nothing in cultural years, and as you say, it's been millennial, but it's been the other way around. But I, I do think that most people deep down don't think that two wrongs make a right. And I don't think that many feminists really see the, the goal is to have 10,000 years where boys and men are doing badly. Then we call it evens. And then maybe we move to this future of equality, but we have to wait another 10,000 years for that. I don't think many really think that. But I, I do understand the instinct though. I mean, and I do think there is a lot more to do for women and girls, and you've discussed it quite a bit on, on on this podcast.

2 (9m 18s):

There are remaining challenges, but, but that's, that's my reaction to that reaction,

1 (9m 24s):

Right? So the women's movement has gone through, I guess, three stages, right? There was kind of the right to vote and then the 1970s, the right to property and equal pay and have mortgages and banking independence and so forth. And then what, I guess we're in the third wave now, or you know, the latest wave of feminism, which, you know, I probably kind of aged out of following it carefully in the moral archive track, really probably that second wave, first and second waves the most. So this one, it seems like it's pushing ever forward. So you get these, you know, more and more opportunities and women taking those opportunities.

1 (10m 8s):

So what, let's just, what's the problem to be solved in the book here? What, how are boys and men falling behind and, and you know, and why does it matter?

2 (10m 19s):

Sure. So the, the evidence that I al in the book, and I have to say it's been quite a long time in the coming, is focused around three different axes. One is education, the second is employment, and the third is the family. And I think they probably get increasingly controversial as we go through them. So if we start with the evidence just on education gaps, there's no real debate about the fact that there are now large gender gaps in almost every advanced economy in terms of education and that they've reversed in recent decades. So, you know, one fact that illustrates that is that in 1972, which is an important year in the US cuz that's when Title nine was passed to promote gender equality in higher education, there was a 13 percentage point gap in the percentage of men getting college degrees over women.

2 (11m 14s):

Now there's a 15 percentage point gap, but the other way around. So girls overtook men and then kept going. And so there's a big agenda gap in higher education today than there was when Title nine was passed. Just the other way around. And there are many other examples in high school and elsewhere, but, and it's interesting and it is, it's an international pattern. So this is not a peculiarly US phenomenon and so large and in some cases growing gaps in education and everything I'm gonna say is especially true for working class boys and men and black boys and men. Secondly, in the labor market, what we've seen is this really impressive economic advance by women, not evenly for sure, college educated women.

2 (11m 54s):

Women at the top have done particularly well, much slower rates of progress for again, for less educated women, but still across the board increased economic progress. Whereas most men today in the US earn less than most men did in 1979. So if, if American men were country and we just measured it in terms of individual learnings, it's poorer today than 40 years ago. And that's a remarkable economic fact. And I think one that really does have to be taken into account. And what that means is that the traditional economic relationship between men and women has, has really been fundamentally altered. So we're now in a world where you, I can say this on this show and people will understand what I'm saying.