Looking at modern male roles in society, part 2
In putting together my brother’s story, a key question in considering my brother’s life is its comparison to mine, or, “why him and not me?” There are many dimensions to that discussion. At the time, I have long thought that growing up as a girl in the 1970’s put me at some disadvantage, and I am also learning that may have been true for Pete, and even more so for those who’ve come after him.
Following on my last post introducing Richard Reeves's book Of Boys and Men, let's look at Reeves's breakdown of his arguments about the current status of male disadvantage and the statistics he presented to support them. We'll start with education - are boys/men falling behind in education? The answer is yes, precipitously, in a way that has emerged in the last roughly 40 years.
Of every 100 bachelor degrees awarded to women, 74 are awarded to men.(p. x) Basically, the gender inequality in terms of college degrees that women experienced in the late '70s, is now being experienced by men.(p.3) Plus, during the pandemic, college enrollment for men dropped at a rate 7 times that of women.(p. 3) These trends extend into graduate and PhD programs, now with majority female candidates. In high school, 2/3 of those performing at the lowest decile across US high schooled are boys, while 2/3 at the highest decile are girls.(p. 6) These trends are also international.(p. 4, 12) Women now have a substantial advantage in education, and it isn't hard to envision how quickly this change of advantage could erode equality within our society. Also, each year that goes by is embedding a pattern that will become harder and harder to reverse - creating an underclass. Perhaps the most interesting idea that Reeves presents is that, once structural barriers to women in education were somewhat dismantled in the 70's and 80's and some decades have passed, it has become clear that primary and secondary education institutions are structured to a female's innate advantage - sitting still, following role models, greater propensity for language skills at an earlier age and throughout, and intellectual/emotional maturity at an earlier age.
The difficulty presented in turning these trends around becomes apparent when first attempts at changing this dynamic have utterly failed. For example, in Kalamazoo MI, when public school students were offered free state university tuition, the number of women achieving degrees increased 45%, while the number of men increased 0%. (p.73) That's correct, 0%. In addition, the boys are noticing female achievement and skills in peers and absorbing lesser expectations for themselves, according to interviews Reeves's team conducted with male students. Clearly, what intuitively seems like a policy geared to help everyone is not helping males, and we're going to have to do better. Reeves argues that the best way to do that is to improve K-12 outcomes for boys, in part by incorporating more male role models into what is now a 76% and growing female teaching establishment.
Biologically speaking, the female education advantage is influenced by how boys' brains and skills develop differently from girls. Far fewer boys are "school ready" by five years of age, and sending them too soon puts them at a disadvantage they struggle with until high school graduation. Reading that boys are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD by a factor of 7 (Leonard Sax, Boys Adrift, 2009, p. 34), or with a developmental disability by 23% (p. 8) creates a curiosity about whether these diagnoses are unbiased or even accurate when happening at such a high rate. Finally, the frontal cortex that is the home of executive function develops two years later for boys than girls, on average(p. 9). This delay in brain development and maturation happens at very formative years (12-20) in terms of learning, growing, and college applications, limiting what is taken in and also choices for future education.
Delving a little deeper into the biological gender differences, males are more likely to be physically aggressive and have a greater appetite for risk and sex on average (p. 89-90). Societal structures - families, communities, public education - help bolster biology in controlling these tendencies, but in a decreasing way as those societal structures are eroding. For instance, boys with stressful upbringings have reduced levels of seratonin and therefore ability to control aggressive behavior(p. 94), and with a growing underclass and divorces common, so are stressful childhoods. Sensitive boys have much worse outcomes when the biological father is no longer in residence, which are know is happening in an increasing share of cases. Boys and girls in neighborhood with a higher proportion of resident fathers have better upward class mobility (Amanpour & Company interview of Reeves, November, 2022). Family commitment and childcare reduce testosterone in adult males, and therefore crime and violence in communities (p. 95) - it becomes apparent how important this could be for everyone. So, increasing in-residence fatherhood, or at least highly-attentive fatherhood, becomes something good for a community's children and adults.
Next time, we will look at the status in the community for males, including the labor force, and how the current situation may lead to bad feelings and, in turn, substance misuse.
