Best Of: The Men — and Boys — Are Not Alright

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2024

⏱️ 119 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We recently did an episode on the strange new gender politics that have emerged in the 2024 election. But we only briefly touched on the social and economic changes that underlie this new politics — the very real ways boys and men have been falling behind. In March 2023, though, we dedicated a whole episode to that subject. Our guest was Richard Reeves, the author of the 2022 book “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It,” who recently founded the American Institute for Boys and Men to develop solutions for the gender gap he describes in his research. He argues that you can’t understand inequality in America today without understanding the specific challenges facing men and boys. And I would add that there’s no way to fully understand the politics of this election without understanding that, either. So we’re rerunning this episode, because Reeves’s insights on this feel more relevant than ever. We discuss how the current education system places boys at a disadvantage, why boys raised in poverty are less likely than girls to escape it, why so many young men look to figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate for inspiration, what a better social script for masculinity might look like and more. Mentioned: "Gender Achievement Gaps in U.S. School Districts" by Sean F. Reardon, Erin M. Fahle, Demetra Kalogrides, Anne Podolsky and Rosalia C. Zarate "Redshirt the Boys" by Richard Reeves Book recommendations: "The Tenuous Attachments of Working-Class Men" by Kathryn Edin, Timothy Nelson, Andrew Cherlin and Robert Francis Career and Family by Claudia Goldin The Life of Dad by Anna Machin Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Carol Sabouraud and Kristina Samulewski.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We are off this week, but I wanted to replay some episodes that I think are particularly of value right now.
0:06.5	We've obviously been talking a lot on the show because the candidates have been talking a lot in the election
0:12.0	about questions of gender and particularly
0:13.7	questions of masculinity. Last year I interviewed Richard Reeves about his book
0:18.9	of Boys and Men, about what has happened to men in America, why they've fallen so far behind,
0:25.8	and what we should think about it, what we can do about it.
0:28.6	I think it serves as a very useful backdrop for a lot of what is getting debated right now.
0:33.2	Enjoy.
0:34.0	I'm Ezra Klein.
0:39.6	This is the Ezra Concho. Men and boys are in bad shape. They're in real bad shape. That's the argument of Richard Reeves new book of Boys and Men.
1:05.2	Or maybe I shouldn't say it's the argument. It's just what the numbers say
1:09.2	across a huge range of domains, health and education and income and happiness and friendship and on and on.
1:19.5	Reeves is a senior fellow at Brookings where he's been studying inequality and poverty and family
1:24.5	policy and gender inequality for years and that work has taken him to an unexpected
1:30.2	even uncomfortable place. When we think about gender inequality, we're usually
1:34.4	thinking about women and girls and for good reason. Men have been
1:38.4	dominant, forcibly dominant, legally dominant in society functionally forever.
1:45.0	And only in recent decades have enormous barriers, been even weakened.
1:50.0	But the progress women have made in that time is remarkable.
1:54.5	Here's one stat re's offer that blows my mind about title 9, the big gender equity
1:58.7	and education bill is passed in 1972.
2:01.9	At that time there was a 13-point gender gap in bachelor's degrees with men of course ahead,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from New York Times Opinion, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of New York Times Opinion and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.