Notes on Being a Man
Audio Recording by Scott Galloway's new book, Notes on Being a Man, is out now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Donald Trump pulled off a stunning political comeback because of … young men. While the Democrats ignored this demographic, the far right rushed in to fill the void, flooding the manosphere with rockets, Hulk Hogan, coarseness, and crypto. The last presidential election was supposed to be a referendum on women’s rights. It wasn’t. It was a referendum on struggling young men.
Five years ago my advocacy for young men sparked a hostile response. Today society is ready to have a productive dialogue, rejecting the far right’s attempts to send non-white people and all women back to the 1950s and the left’s belief that young men don’t have problems but are the problem. This isn’t a zero-sum game. We can build on the gains women have registered over the past three decades and ensure there’s room for boys and young men in the conversation. Democrats are starting to tackle the crisis, but we can’t rely on prominent party leaders to drive the change. We can count on the tech industry, however, to keep supporting their massive valuations by connecting profits with the sequestration and enragement of young men. Men ages 20 to 30 now spend less time outside than prison inmates.
Men of my generation have a debt to these young men. Our unfair advantage must be paid forward (or backward). We need to get involved in their lives, advocate for policies to right the ship, and model a healthier vision of masculinity. All of us have a role to play in giving young men a code — a positive set of principles — to live by.
Below is an excerpt from my new book, Notes on Being a Man. This one is personal. I hope it resonates with you.
________________
Falling Farther, Faster
One of the semi-exciting perks of being an academic and “thought leader” is uncovering data, especially when it’s both obvious and hidden. Years ago, the alarming state of American boys and men overtook my attention. I track closely the emails I get. Most are from parents, particularly mothers, concerned about their sons, along these lines: “I have a daughter who lives in Chicago and works in PR and another daughter who’s at Penn.
My son lives in our basement, vapes, and plays video games.” Moms, not dads, were leading the charge. Others were either ignoring the problem or didn’t want to talk about it. Absent, too, was any sober, data-driven analysis. The gag-reflex cultural response seemed to be Wow, men are worse than we think, and that the issues they face are a function of their awfulness, and haven’t we spent the past forty years correctly focused on the struggles of other, more deserving groups?
I connected to this topic on a personal level. I thought back on where I came from, my mom’s irrational passion for my well-being, the generosity of California taxpayers who made it possible for an unremarkable kid with mediocre grades to attend college and business school, and all the obstacles, temptations, and traps that could have easily hampered my socialization — smartphones, online dating, porn, gambling, video games, remote work. I wondered why what was happening to boys and young men was in fact happening and how I could raise my sons in a world where they — and males of any age — thrive.
The data around boys and young men is overwhelming. Seldom in recent memory has there been a cohort that’s fallen farther, faster. Why? First, boys face an educational system biased against them — with brains that mature later than girls’, they almost immediately fall behind their female classmates. Many grow up without male role models, including teachers — fewer men teach K–12 than there are women working in STEM fields — with Black and Hispanic school instructors especially underrepresented.
Post–high school, the social contract that binds America — work hard, play by the rules, and you’ll be better off than your parents were — has been severed. Seventy-year-old Americans today are, on average, 72% wealthier than they were forty years ago.
People under the age of forty are 24% less wealthy. The deliberate transfer of wealth from the young to the old in the United States over the past century has led to unaffordable and indefensible costs for education and housing and skyrocketing student debt, all of which directly affect young men. It’s why twenty-five-year-olds today make less than their parents and grandparents did at the same age, while carrying debt loads unimaginable to earlier generations. Neither the minimum nor the median wage has kept pace with inflation or productivity gains, while housing costs have outpaced both. As the costs of college have soared beyond the reach of most families, many of the manufacturing jobs that didn’t require a college degree and were often a ticket to the middle class for (mostly) men have been offshored. A prohibitive real estate market is a contributing factor to why 60% of young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four live with their parents and 1 in 5 still live with their parents at age thirty. Stuck and unable to afford greater economic opportunities in nearby cities, they find the same crush and collision of density, stimulation, humanity, creativity, eroticism, and conversation that urban areas offer on their phones instead. In Manhattan, a four-hundred-square-foot apartment costs $3,000 a month. In its stead is a seventeen-square-inch mobile studio apartment costing roughly $42 a month, served up by AT&T, T- Mobile, or Verizon.
Meanwhile, algorithmically generated content on social media contributes to—and profits from—young men’s growing social isolation, boredom, and ignorance. With the deepest-pocketed firms on the planet trying to convince young men they can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen, many grow up without acquiring the skills to build social capital or create wealth. The percentage of young men aged twenty to twenty-four who are neither in school nor working has tripled since 1980. Workforce participation among men has fallen below 90%, caused by a lack of well-paying jobs, wage stagnation, disabilities, a mismatch of skills and/or training, and falling demand for jobs traditionally held by prime-age men.
This is deadly. From 2005 to 2019, roughly 70,000 Americans died every year from deaths of despair — suicide, drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning — with a disproportionate number of those fatalities being unemployed white males without a college degree. Excluding deaths caused by the opioid epidemic, America’s suicide and alcohol-related mortality rate for all races is higher than it’s been in a century. It’s also a mating crisis, as women traditionally mate horizontally and up socioeconomically, whereas men mate horizontally and down. Up until the mid–twentieth century, homogamy — marriages between men and women from similar educational backgrounds — was more common than not. Today, hypogamy, where women marry men who have less education than themselves, is on the rise. When the pool of horizontal-and-up young men shrinks, there are fewer mating opportunities, less family and household formation, and not as many babies. Here’s a terrifying stat: 45% of men ages eighteen to twenty-five have never approached a woman in person. And without the guardrails of a relationship, young men behave as if they have … no guardrails.
Why are we so averse to identifying and celebrating what’s good about men and masculinity, and why does it matter? Because we won’t prosper if we convince boys and young men that they’re victims, or that they don’t have to be persistent and resilient, or that their perspective isn’t valuable. If we do, we’ll end up with a society of old people and zero economic growth. If we can’t convince young men of the honor involved and the unique contributions inherent in expressing what makes them male, we’ll lose them to niche, rabid online communities.
As my Pivot podcast cohost Kara Swisher commented once, it should matter to everyone if men aren’t thriving. Women and children can’t flourish if men aren’t doing well. Neither will our country.
Life is so rich,
P.S. Notes on Being a Man was published this week and is available in all the usual places.
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Hey Scott—I’m a 22-year-old student at Loyola Marymount University. I love your pod and newsletter, and just finished The Algebra of Wealth. I want to build a life like yours—not overnight (I’ve been guilty of thinking that way but I’m learning), and I know you often say if success like yours is the goal, “buck up for 20+ years of hard work.” I’m trying to figure out what I’m best at so I can aim my effort early. I love talking with people and genuinely care about who they are and what they think. I’m good at making others feel that. I think I have decent taste too—clothes, buildings, cars, design. Maybe I just like nice things, but I hear your voice: “Stay away from what’s sexy” and “Assume you aren’t Ralph Lauren.” My parents trade time for money; I respect them deeply but want more leverage. I see friends whose parents are in private equity or real estate and notice the difference. What’s the best wave to ride if you’re not at a target school? I want to make great money and be around people smarter than me. How do I pitch myself to those groups and what skills should I double down on to overperform when I get my shot? Lastly, I’ve been in a long-distance relationship through college—how do you navigate the “let’s move in together” stage after graduation? If you’re ever in LA, I’d love to buy you an $8 latte. Appreciate your work and all you do.
This is how you solve the “male loneliness crisis.”
Men: Quit claiming you’re so busy and make time for connection with other men. That includes phone and text communication, one-on-one and small group gatherings, and consistent attendance at any community groups you’re part of (church, volleyball club, etc.).
Women: Quit allowing men to forget their friendship community exists (if they have one…) when they start dating you.
The unethical hypnotherapist has struck again.
I prepared a go bag to wait with someone at a hospital tomorrow. I found nothing of what I prepared in there. Instead, there was a puzzle book I’d already completed.
I remember the taunts the unethical hypnotherapist cued up for me last time this asshole stunt was pulled, and it was miserable going on a trip with nothing but the unethical hypnotherapist’s goddamn taunting bullshit to keep me company in the evening.
Anyone here who’s seeing a hypnotherapist should keep in mind that they could have a similar experience. The hypnotherapists don’t have a procedure for culling the assholes who’d pull a stunt like that, so there are bound to be a lot of assholes in hypnotherapy.
I’d also keep in mind the smartassery I got from Psychology Today after I asked in a comment for John Sleazy Ryder how you stop an unethical hypnotherapist.
You never know. Anyone dealing with a TP writer could have the same experience, too. Their lack of willingness to stop an ethics violator is a sign that no one at TP is into ethics.
Those TP writers are supposedly expert speakers and witnesses. You’d think they’d be a little more concerned about stopping an unethical practitioner, because it reflects on them.
I will stress that I’ve had quite a few bad experiences under the “care” of the unethical hypnotherapist, who asked no permission and refuses to leave despite my repeated “no.”
I wouldn’t believe any hypnotherapist understands “no means no” in any situation, but even without that big no-no, do you really want to allow a mesmerist into your mind and just trust it? Hypnotherapy grew out of the mesmerists’ rape cult, and their aversion to ethics suggests it didn’t grow out of it enough for safety.
Hypnotherapy is rather unregulated, probably because a lot of congressmen mysteriously forgot about the legislation to control it after a visit from the hypnotists’ lobbyist.
Writing does help clear the head. I couldn’t remember the unethical hypnotherapist’s commands from when I packed this go bag, but I could think through the ones before that horrid vacation, since it taunted me with the packing process, altered by its suggestion.
I’ve still had a blast of taunts from a previous mesmerist attack.
Still, I hope no one’s foolish enough to trust a so-called professional with no controls on its handiwork.
That vacation I mentioned was my first hope for a peaceful getaway after learning that there was an unethical hypnotherapist violating my mind. I still hope for a vacation as peaceful as the one I’d hoped for then.
If you engage the services of a hypnotherapist, you might find yourself hoping as I’ve hoped over the years. Trust me, you don’t want to hope like that, and you don’t want to engage the services of any hypnotherapist, ever, for anything.
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Scott – Please go see Predator: Badlands. No joke. Not only is it a fun experience, the story is about a young man seeking to complete a rite of passage in accordance with warped sense of masculinity, and due to circumstances, he must learn to adjust his understanding to truly ‘bag his hunting trophy”. I’d love to see you break it down, or talk to some of the filmmakers.
Every show on Netflix:
White guy is the villain / fool
Black guys / gay guys are the heroes
Women save the day
Dad is an idiot
Children are sexualized
Who is behind all the self hating propaganda?
What is the end game?
All the still mostly male producers and directors want to put out a show that’ll get them laid?
“Men of my generation have a debt to these young men. Our unfair advantage must be paid forward (or backward)”. This really resonated with me. The first (unfair advantage) house I bought was three times my salary, now its 10x! And borrowing was substanially easier and cheaper back then.
The debt, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in”. I hope this succinctly illustrates your point Scott? It features in my daily thinking as an old man! Thanks for the insights.
spot on observations. read this, and listen to this work
Scott Galloway’s interview with Michael Smerconish yesterday made me start reading his new release. It resonated with me that us (men) can play a role model on younger men in addition to our sons. As an engineer, I love data and facts confirm the story written about this important topic. Kudos to SG. Best
Scott Galloway says men need to “drink and dance again.” It’s not about alcohol; it’s about reclaiming connection, purpose, and community in a society that isolates young men. Technology, pornography, and virtual distractions have left many rudderless, while social structures that once guided them — schools, mentorship, military service — have eroded.
Liberals often dismiss male struggles; conservatives show little concern for working-class men. The result: men without guidance, vulnerable to toxic role models and fleeting social connections. Galloway warns this emptiness fuels isolation, addiction, and anger.
Historically, service and shared social rituals provided men purpose and connection. Today, those pathways are gone. “Drink and dance” is shorthand for reclaiming human rhythm — spaces to connect, fail, and grow. Masculinity isn’t dominance; it’s empathy, responsibility, and decency. The question isn’t whether men should change. It’s whether society will give them the chance.
It’s not as SG says, just “the sequestration and enragement of young men”
It’s the complete emasculation of young men by the left.
Drink and dance is the right prescription. American liberal women have proven to be the worst partners.They initiate more than 75% of divorces.
We need to retake our dominance.
That is not Scott’s message. And as a woman, I don’t want to be dominated by men in general or by my partner. I’m looking for equality in our society and in private partnership, not a prescriptive order based on gender.
You write with such passion about the struggles of American men, about “deaths of despair” and cohorts “falling farther, faster.” But it’s a jarringly selective compassion.
How can an essay on the crisis facing “young men” so thoroughly ignore the thousands of young men being systematically killed in Gaza? This isn’t some distant problem – it is a crisis directly fueled by billions in US funding and political support, a policy you, Scott Galloway, have publicly championed.
Your piece laments a society that has “severed” its social contract with its young men, yet you produce this moral analysis while actively supporting a military campaign that obliterates the future of an entire generation of them elsewhere. This isn’t just an omission =- it’s a perfect illustration of the very moral breakdown you’re writing about: the ability to mourn one tragedy while endorsing the machinery of another.
Three-quarters of children spend less time outdoors than prison inmates. We are all sick because of screen addiction.
Scott
You’re the man!
I’ve started reading your book it is great and it’s timely. I subscribeto all of the prof G podcasts. I love your outrageous jokes, as I am a 13 yr old in a 75 yr old body.
I irritate the shit out of my friends because I’m constantly sending links to podcast for your newsletter saying you got to read this you got to listen to this!
😂
China decode is a great addition, Americans failed to understand how far China is ahead of America is in so many realms, particularly technology and how they hold too many “Trump” cards that could disrupt our economy or the global economy if they choose. keep up the good work, brother.
You speak the truth about our boys and men. We will not survive if this does not change. I am completing a book to help fathers do a better job of raising their boys and I am grateful to you for writing about this. The more attention to creating change for our males, the better. Thank you. Gloria
Scott, great piece but you left out a couple of key words such as lazy and entitled. When i asked my father if i could have a car he said fine – go get a job and buy it yourself. I learned to work and provide for myself. In my day you had to call the girl on the phone, i understand now that is considered rude. Bottom line they have to try to succeed, if they dont i have no sympathy.
I was born in 1958 into a nuclear lower middle class religious family. Four kids and a mother and father that stayed together who worked hard and achieved the American dream with home ownership and a mom and dad who made it a requirement that each child did well in school and went to college and graduated. There were many expectations and requirements..go to church each Sunday (as a family) be involved at school (Sports and other after school activities) work in the summer. The lesson was …work hard, be a go getter, be kind to people and good things eventually success will come your way. It worked for all of us. That guidance and expectation seems to be lacking now adays. Social Media, smartphones, lack of the nuclear family and greed is certainly is part of the problem that is effecting young men especially. Not sure what the answer is but having a strong family unit, stressing hard work and responsibility for yourself, teaching good morals, getting involved in your community, developing good social skills, limiting screen time (versus young people having a smartphone in their face 24/7 starting at such a young age today) could go a long way in addressing this issue.
Has anyone tried telling Tim Walz to be a man? That dumb loser is just a jerk who tells couch jokes to please others like him who are so pathetic that they only feel manly when telling couch jokes.
I hope Tim will be the last Walz that the Democratic Party puts on the national stage.
“The Natural Superiority of the Female Sex” by Ashley Montague/Users/joanbreibart/Desktop/Screenshot 2025-11-07 at 9.38.04 PM.png
Scott, thank you for shining a light on this issue. As a 68 year old man I recognize that I need to do more to help guide the young men following behind.
I graduated High School in1970.
My first job was a union job with good pay and benefits. Part of our contract called for uniforms. Every week my dirty uniforms were returned cleaned and pressed.
My name was over the right pocket, my work pants had sharp creases.
I was 18 years old, and I was stepping out.
Few times a month a group went to the bowling alley next door, everyone knew who we were and where we worked. We had BBQs in the used car lot. Friends and family invited. Economically and politically, it was a different Country. We would never vote for a politician that would refuse to feed hungry children. That cute young lady at KFC knew my name and where I worked. She turned me down when I asked her out, but she was always pleasant and friendly. I saw in real time how Reaganomics trickle down, primacy of shareholder value, the demonization of unions and the constant narrative that our government is the cause of all our problems created a population full of anger and resentment and destroyed the pathways for high school graduates to achieve real upward mobility. A major retailer advertises $23.00 per hour. Better than average for retail, but $47,840 per year is not moving out of the basement money. Where are the apprenticeship programs for the building trades and other in demand skills. Most entry level jobs today SUCK. Low pay, no benefits, no future. Is the cost of living too high or the pay too low.
You want male schoolteachers, bring back the military draft.
Some horrifying stats there about the lack of socialisation of many young men. Some questions… 1. Do the stats vary across race and family (parental) income? 2. Are the stats representative of young males outside America?
And 3. Sources for the stats please.
The situation for men has always been harsh. As a young woman 50 years ago I realised how horrific it was for men to grow up knowing that they’d have to kill or be killed. That’s how men were raised. Primarily valued as economic units or soldiers, little wonder they lost touch with their “sensitive side”! Then, as women reclaimed their economic and social power, men got to feel redundant, unvalued, and bad about themselves. It’s a great pity that a men’s liberation movement didn’t grow together with the women’s movement. But, better late than never. I’d like all men to know that they are Essentially Good. Even the bad ones are good. That’s a good starting point.
Each group needs to do their own liberation work but it’s a pity
You regularly talk how you want to make sure your legacy defined by bringing up your sons as being good people. Yet, in your talking about the societal issue of young men that “many grow up without male role models, including teachers.” You allude to the fact that there are more single Mothers than there were sixty years ago. While that may be true, it is the Mothers that are vocalizing their concern about their sons and that the Census shows that 70% of all children live with two parents. Where is the focus on the responsibility of their Fathers? Why do they get such an easy pass to even attempt to be a role mode for their child. Most children model their behavior after their parents and these generations of boy appear to have sluggo Dads and the girls have super person Moms. Let’s put the responsibility parenting on both parents, not just Mothers.
I almost fell out my chair when I read this. Not going to cheer for you yet, but Ronald Reagan would say, “You’re now a Republican!” Being a mother and a father is a daily learning proposition. No one is ever a parent…until you are one! Son in the basement? Give him a month and show him the door.
My last name is Dolan. I used to joke with my Dad, “Dad, why aren’t you like Charles Dolan (Cablevision, billionaire). “I’d be a very respectful son of a billionaire.” My Dad’s response, “Tee it up. It’s your shot!” That was it. We relished laughing about that question. My Dad had his first job at the age of 9, turning styles at Sportsmen’s Park in St. Louis. I painted houses starting age 15. My brother worked at McDonald’s at 16, then a grocery store clerk. We worked! We helped pay for our college education. Paid our loans off. Any young man that is not out there in the world, enjoying the world, learning about the world, taking on risk (legally!) is a fool and he knows it. I started my own painting company at age 18. WTH?! If I can do it, so can the next young man. And get this, tell your sons to go out there and get rejected! Ask a girl out on a date. You’ll hear “No”. But be that guy standing in a college bar at midnight on Saturday, not sh_t-faced drunk…you are a magnet!
Good point. If you have not been getting rejected in life (over and over again) it means you are not trying. Anyone who has a 30 year old son living in their basement is part of the problem. Being an enabler to child’s laziness and lack of motivation is a big part of the problem today. Teach your son(s) to work hard and give him a kick in the ARSE when needed. Don’t make it comfortable for them to be hanging around at your home and stress that they are only guests there. That’s what my dad did. A Dad saying “Get a job you lazy slob and grow the F up” is s good message but if you do it right as a parent it should never have to come to that. Start early with the expectations!!!
“And without the guardrails of a relationship, young men behave as if they have … no guardrails.”
Imho.. the American woman, beginning in the early aughts, has become essentially unapproachable. She became a supercilious, Athena/Helen caricature – even a cosplyer wannabe- all critics. Ruthless social media judges of looks, character, and intelligence. If a guy has two beers, he’s a drunk; if a woman has two glasses of a French pinot noir, she has social value.
21st century dating either never takes off, eventually becomes a debacle.
It’s on the women, Scott. Living through the 80s and 90s and seeing it now is believing.
Anonymous cuts deeper than face-to-face. When Kara says everyone should care- No, not everyone the women- our dating pool needs to care. Parents and commentators dont have to.
In other words, a PhD who wants to be an OF influencer. These types are not exactly marriage material for a good guy with a decent career or a rich guy, either. Leave them for the nepo boys – they have enough problems too..
Unless we acknowledge and stop the insidious messaging radical Feminism did to our culture, education system, and workplace, we wont be able to reverse this trend.
The key is confidence- they dont have it. I give it to my 5 y/o at the right times in the right places.
Until we stop blaming the rich white dudes- you among- have a prescription.
When the Left places the straight, Caucasian male at the bottom of their victimhood hierarchy, what else do you expect?
There’s a situation that crops up in places where there are a lot of liberal women where men who aren’t seen as good-looking or from the right background find themselves actually do find themselves at the bottom of a hierarchy, while it’s obvious that more handsome men from upscale suburban backgrounds get a pass. If you act based on cues from what people are doing around you, you get the kind of differing response that lets you know you aren’t part of the group.
That hit me hard in college.
That’s bad enough in person, but I’ve seen that social media is often taken over by the upscale (self-assessed) good-looking liberal types, which must mean that a lot of guys get that shit just going online, maybe even without actually participating in the discussion.
I’ve actually tried to participate to get clobbered by assholes and marginalized, so I can see where getting clobbered by assholes before you can even try is a tough thing to overcome for a lot of young men.
I would say to young men who are feeling like life is futile because of the assholes that if you try, you’re bound to get some good experiences with the frustrating ones.
I have heard some statistics on male isolation from Japan which sound like the one Scott quotes. It’s true I don’t hear them here, but I do sometimes suspect that we do have problems just as bad in the United States and much of the world, but researchers aren’t exactly trying hard to find out.
Scott I find your conclusions here to be flawed in that you fail to recognize the fact that the “No Child Left Behind” educational model has had over the past 20 plus years on all students, particularly though on young men. The very structure of high school has been changed to the point where young men are not offered the opportunity to take the types of technical classes that would allow them to spend less seat time and more interactive time manipulating the physical world. Today’s high school is riddled with excessive graduation requirements, content, and homework. Young men fair less well in these situations and have no other options, no other pathways to develop stronger identities through greater class offerings including skill training. In this country, we have a skilled worker crisis where there are 6 to 10 million skilled jobs that are unfilled. If you combine a failed educational model with a lack of skill training, young people will suffer in my opinion but young men have at a much higher rate. As a 33-year veteran school counselor and placement coordinator in technical education I’m well aware that these problems exist however most people in other parts of academia don’t connect these dots simply because it’s not coming up on their radar.
It always blows my mind how a guy who bills himself as data driven can be such a humanist. It’s a wonderful surprise. The other thing I notice is that you use your data drilling skills to build socio-economic analysis that are accessible to us more binary types, who need to flip a switch in our brains to go from creative to analytical. You do such a great job of integrating the two. I bought your book presale, just now getting into it. Thanks so much for putting a notion I’ve been struggling with out there so direct and plain. Good on you!
Unfortunately factory and resource related work was allowed to be diminished. The education system removed shop classes as a requirement for a young man’s education. They were told to go to college these jobs aren’t valuable to a society that over the past 35 years demonized resource related employment and the associated employment. Locking down land and preventing a balanced use of resources. In the west looking up the forest land and watching it burn instead of creating opportunities for young men to follow the path that other men in their community did. Read the book the Big Burn by Egan. It will describe how the Intermountain west burned not because of climate change, but because unmanaged forests can be devastated by fire and burn towns. Interestingly not many towns burned to the ground when the fraction forestry science that T Roosevelt started with the forest service that grew to importance as a result of the Big Burn. Recently the fires in Paradise California, Talent Oregon and other Western Infernos are in part a result of environmental practices that prevent work that could be done by young men in thinning, harvesting and in part creating jobs and employment. I remember when mill jobs, mining work and the employment related to support these industries created hope and opportunity for young men as they did for me
“45% of men ages eighteen to twenty-five have never approached a woman in person” – I always prefer when authors cite their sources, because this seems extremely unlikely taken at face value. If this is means “have ever approached a woman they don’t know in a social situation and asked them on a date” I’d find it more believable.
But in general, the post is spot on. In many areas, and certainly among younger cohorts, women are equal or have surpassed men in any number of ways (including education level and income). It’s past time the pendulum started to swing back, and for the narrative of “well men dominated for XX years so this is just their comeuppance” to disappear. Equal rights and equal opportunities is the name of the game. Older men are clearly ahead of older women, and it’s not that there aren’t areas of the playing field to level in that direction still, but there needs to be a societal recognition that there are now a LOT of areas that have been tilted away from young men and start leveling those back out as well.
Great post
As the son of a 21 year old autistic boy (mild) the problems you point out are even more accentuated for young men who are neuro diverse. Despite all the amazing tech we have in this world , it’s shocking that we can’t get the most basis things right, resulting in this pandemic of loneliness, isolation and anxiety . Keep up the good work Prof G
Only a few years ago, my son’s San Francisco high school made a point to diminish athletes, especially boys, as other “marginalized” and underrepresented students were lauded and celebrated, often to an extreme. As you say, it’s a not a zero-sum game, but it was executed by the school and even some parents in that way with the result that young men at his school were pointedly alienated.
Barf. What you or Richard Reeves have never (as far as I know) understood or written about is that the pushback you get is because the RESPONSE to difficulty from men is anger, aggression, and violence.
Whereas when women have been in the down position for, well, ALL previous history they did NOT lash out.
Im a GenX dad who was on 4chan and newgrounds before they became hellholes and basically did what you advocate with my son. So Im sure your response is: “Don’t you (meaning me) want the same for all young men?” Of course.
But I cant stand this coming from you or Reeves exactly because you still haven’t given women their due: They didn’t exit society all this time. Is it a surprise they are contemplating it now? Or you get this sort of pushback?
A GenX Dad of a GenZ Son
“ Because we won’t prosper if we convince boys and young men that they’re victims”. As a young man, this feels like the most important point. The problem is this is how every struggling demographic is treated, evidenced by affirmative action, DEI, and to some extent the Civil Rights movement. Men are strong and capable and will do fine when the thumb is taken off the scales to bias particular groups. Society will shake out how it is supposed to when this happens.
We need to have programs of the sort FDR used in the Depression. It was mainly male adults then especially physical labor and helped prepare the Greatest Generation to set the world back in order. There were later programs for young males and females. A girlfriend of mine and was Fresh Air Kid around 1970, profited greatly from being taken in by a farm family, succeeded in, visited the family once a year. I left Harvard and volunteered for the army and Vietnam knowing something important was missing in my life. My three years in the army changed the course of my life, showed me I could be tough when needed and pretty much persuaded me that I wa and shouldn’t worry about death. Well, I’m 81, still work hard and accept that I will probably die within 10 or 15 years. There could be a system like the one I encountered in the army where most troops were channelled in a path based on testing for anything from mechanic jobs to Special Forces.I don’t think the teen experience needs something militaristic, but maybe an Outward Bound experience with a little more challenge. All those boys smoking and playing video games would benefit from an almost mandatory program which begins with becoming tough and ends with a few parachute jumps. They could grow up critical of things like Vietnam but not because they are helpless wimps and scared of girls.
Please clarify your statistical comment that “45% of men ages eighteen to twenty-five have never approached a woman in person” as that statement is absurd on the face of it.
yes, I would like the citation.
The stat is real. Google it.
Scott cites fake statistics all the time, like when he claimed that married households increase their net worth by 17% per year.
I’ve been reading and listening to you speak for a few years now. Your message is so important. Now my son is in his 2nd year of a very good engineering school and skipping classes, depressed, addicted to social media. The struggle is real. He doesn’t drink alcohol, smoke or take drugs. I thought that was good enough. No Xbox or gaming in our house was allowed. We’re going one day at a time to get him through this quarter. I didn’t think this would be our problem but here we are.
Damn right we have a crisis amongst young men because we have lowered standards, diluted accountability, babied them, done away with confidence building daily PE in our schools, did away with the draft, and have had an explosion of mental health excuses for everything.
This has resulted in an epidemic of low expectation men living with their parents, failing to find a mate and get married, lower labor force participation rates, an elevated suicide rate, and a dramatically lowered sense of personal happiness.
My Number One Son graduated college w a degree in business after 5 years (I paid all his costs of college and he lived like bloody royalty — I would reconsider that but I have a wife), had a bunch of great internships including an extended period in China and working on a presidential campaign for a year. Good kid.
He comes home and returns to his room at our very nice home in Austin By God Texas. Settles in, catches up on his sleep going back to childhood. Damn strong sleeper.
I tell him, “Son of mine, beloved son, because I love you so much, you can live with us and I will pay all the bills. FOR A MONTH. Thereafter, you are out of here.” We have a very nice guest room and my wife decides I should sleep there until this blows over.
Before the month is over, Number One Son has a good job and ends up as an investment banker.
It is up to us to raise our sons and prepare them to make it in the world. Us. Nobody else.
JLM
AMEN.
Bingo.
I applaud your comment – well stated. Thank you.
Nailed it. Love them, nurture them, but set thresholds to build them. So that they can navigate their own way. That’s what we signed up for as soon as we decided to become parents. I’m shocked at how many parents I know just go on tolerating crap, because they are terrified that their child may harm themselves. That’s already a clear signal of failed parenting.
As the mother of a growing son and also observing many young adult men struggle in real time, I thank you for writing this.
Thank you for writing this book and for this write-up, which I am sending to several of my colleagues that work in the foundation world as a wake-up call with the hope that they can begin to use some strategies in your book. I did get to see you on MSNBC as well.
I finished the audio book yesterday and will start it again for round 2 tomorrow. It’s so full gems, wisdom and common sense. Amongst all that I learned more of Scott life. It’s a really honest book. I’ve already bought a copy for my friend. I think all men and woman should have a read
Test.