Can Men Be Saved? Richard Reeves on the New Crisis of Masculinity

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The last several decades have seen countless initiatives to improve educational and professional opportunities for girls and women. And they worked! Women now outpace men across any number of metrics, notably educational attainment but also mental and physical health, home ownership, civic engagement and, increasingly, income. Richard Reeves's new book, Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why it Matters and What To Do About It, explores some of the unintended consequences of all that progress and looks at how structural changes in society have benefitted women while leaving many men without coherent roles or purpose. In this interview, Richard talks about why he thinks boys should start school a year later than girls, why screens and video games aren't the boogymen we might think they are, and how the role of "provider" has shifted from men to women, especially in the lower and working classes. He and Meghan discuss why it's so hard to talk about these issues without being written off as an anti-feminist or men's rights activist, what Richard has learned from raising three boys himself, and whether Gen-Xers actually grew up in a kind of sexual revolution sweet spot; post equal rights but pre-dating apps and hookup culture.

Guest Bio:

Richard Reeves is the author of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why it Matters and What To Do About It. He is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where his research focuses on social mobility, inequality, and family change. A contributor to The Atlantic, National Affairs, Democracy Journal, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, he is also the author of John Stuart Mill – Victorian Firebrand and Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Unspeakable Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down. If you are under the age of, say, 60, maybe, you probably grew up noticing lots of initiatives to improve educational and professional opportunities for women. With the rise of second wave feminism in the 70s and 80s, came a massive effort to get
0:22.9	more girls into college and from there, even out the achievement gap between men and women.
0:28.9	The effort was a success, to put it mildly. As we've talked about a lot on this show, women are
0:34.6	outpacing men across any number of metrics, notably educational attainment,
0:39.8	but also in terms of income, health, and overall well-being. My guest, Richard Reeves, has written
0:46.5	a book that explores how we got to this point. It's called Of Boys and Men, Why the Modern
0:52.7	Male is Struggling, Why It Matter matters, and what to do about it.
0:57.2	Richard has been making the media rounds lately, including doing a lot of podcasts like this one,
1:02.6	but I have to say we cover a lot of new ground here. So even if you've heard him interviewed
1:07.6	before, I think you'll appreciate this conversation. We talk about why it's so
1:12.8	hard to even talk about this stuff without being written off as some kind of men's rights activist.
1:19.4	We talk about what he learned from raising three boys himself and ask whether Gen Xers actually
1:26.0	grew up in a kind of sexual revolution sweet spot,
1:29.3	post equal rights, but pre-dating apps and hookup culture.
1:33.5	It's a great conversation.
1:35.0	So here's my talk with Richard Reeves.
1:39.5	Richard Reeves, welcome to The Unspeakable.
1:42.3	Thank you.
1:43.3	Your book of Boys and Men has been extremely well received.
1:48.5	You've been making the rounds, lots of media, both legacy media, as well as the heterodox space
1:54.1	that this podcast occupies.
1:56.4	This is a subject that has interested me for a very long time.
	...

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