What is happening in our schools and colleges today is emblematic of what is happening in all too many domains of life, which is that, for more and more young adults, females are flourishing and males are floundering. Young women are outpacing young men in college, graduate school and many a workplace in cities across the United States. Meanwhile, young men are much more likely to be denizens of the basement or, even worse, prison or jail.
What accounts for this male malaise? Education scholars Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Stephen Billings and David Deming point to the effect that strict schools can have in elevating the odds that boys end up in prison — especially Black and Hispanic boys. Reeves points to the ways that schools hold boys back by offering them insufficient opportunities for recess and attention from male teachers, among other things. And psychologist Jonathan Haidt, in his new book “The Anxious Generation,” points to the negative effects of Big Tech — especially gaming and pornography — in robbing boys and young men of their ambition and countless opportunities to engage the real world.
But one word generally goes unmentioned in contemporary discussions of our male malaise: “marriage.”