"Of Boys And Men"

 Yglesias takes a run at Richard Reeve's new book "Of Boys and Men." I had previously read David Brooks' review of it. As both a teacher and a father of boys, this has been a concern of mine. It does tend to get bogged down in culture war trench warfare, which limits how we deal with, though it's interesting that my feminist wife is also very concerned about it - again a teacher and a mother of boys.

One thing Yglesias can always be relied in to do is lean on his previously held beliefs. In this case, he makes the argument - which I do believe is sound - that we shouldn't shy from universal solutions. This has always been a blindspot of the left, and it applies in this instance, even if the left isn't engaged on this issue. Yes, we should help address economic and environmental racism. But if we address economic equality and environmental degradation in general, we will disproportionately help Black and Brown communities. Universal pre-K will help those communities, too.

There are solutions to "the boy problem" that would be helpful, like universal pre-K, but of course, that's expensive. You get pushback from women's advocates who rightly note that men are disproportionately represented in the halls of power and business. That's not the issue. The issue is that male children of non-elites are really struggling, and we see that show up in really bad social outcomes. Young men will always be a disproportionate share of the criminal element in a society, because of the nature of being young men. They are literally wired to take bigger risks. Addressing this gap among boys in non-college educated households is an important societal task.

The fact is that the culture war crap makes this so much harder to solve. Feminists are right that "men" are not a disadvantaged group; we are talking about a sub-group of men. Conservatives will trace this to a "war on boys" which is largely bullshit. There isn't a war on boys, it's just that their needs are being ignored to death. The solutions, like universal pre-K, won't jazz conservatives who hate the state doing anything for the poor.

There's another aspect of this, though, that is also tied into a larger framework. 

Jobs can suck.

Personally, I mostly love my job, but it's an avocation, a career. I enjoy a certain respect in my work. I have rarely "enjoyed" the McJobs of my youth. We are seeing this dynamic in the quiet quitting phenomenon and the post-Covid job dynamics. 

People don't want to work shitty jobs for low pay and low respect. This can be especially acute for men, whose pride can mess them up. Yeah, men can sometimes feel like they are owed things that they aren't owed. Yeah, this leads to toxic masculinity. However, simply raising pay won't completely bridge this gap. In one way, universal health care would make a huge difference here. By levelling one set of inputs and outcomes, it would take the onus away from low-paying, poor-benefit jobs. It would be insufficient, but it would also help outcomes among men.

There was a time when manual labor had a prestige place in American values. Now, unskilled manual labor is a ticket to poor health and poor status. Certain manual skilled jobs retain some of that prestige (plumbers, electricians, some IT work) but those jobs aren't open to 19 year olds. If your options are stay at home, get high and play video games or work at McDonalds for minimum wage...whose to say option one doesn't make some sort of sense.

America has seen a decline in social mobility relative to Europe. Is that because vocational education and vocational jobs are not frowned upon?

My sons are the product of a "social elite" household of two college and post-graduate degree holders. The system actually should work really well for them. Colleges want young men! Hopefully our youngest will benefit by being a boy who's good at school, but even our eldest - who is smart, but not "good at school" - is having a productive college experience. In part, that was because when he struggled in school, we had resources to bring to bear to help him.

Not every boy can say the same, and that is having a negative effect on our country.