Richard Reeves On Struggling Men And Boys

The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan

Politics, News, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 836 Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2022

⏱️ 93 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Richard Reeves is a senior fellow at Brookings, where he directs the Boys and Men Project. He’s also been the director of Demos — the London-based political think-tank — an adviser to Nick Clegg in David Cameron’s coalition government, and a Guardian journalist. His latest book is Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. (For more, follow his new substack.)

I’m fascinated by the challenges of modernity for the weaker sex (men), and Richard has grappled with the questions more calmly than most. For two clips of our convo — on how boys are less resilient than girls, and on the racialized sexism against African-American men — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics we touch on: the cartoonish masculinity of MAGA, the need for male teachers, the huge gains of black women, the gender pay gap(s), the class gaps of marriage, deaths of despair, sex-segregated sports, and the pathologizing of male sexuality.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Hi there. Yes, this is my voice. It's not entirely back, but it's certainly back enough for us to have a conversation, which I've been really looking forward to. It's about a subject
0:40.6	that can be somewhat taboo that is a bit of a problem for both the right and the left in different
0:48.6	ways, I think. It's about boys and men, the male part of our species, and the challenges that are dramatically reshaped society in the 21st century, present particularly to men in a way that maybe we haven't been paying attention to enough. Larry Summers said this just
1:14.2	the other day on Twitter and got completely piled on by all the usual suspects. But as usual,
1:19.5	Larry Summers is onto something. And this book of Boys and Men is what we're going to discuss
1:26.8	today. It's by Richard Reeves.
1:29.3	He is a senior fellow at Brookings, where he directs the Boys and Men project.
1:36.3	He's also been the director of Demos, the London-based political think tank,
1:40.3	an advisor to Nick Clegg in the coalition government and a Guardian journalist.
1:45.0	The book is called, Of Boys and Men, Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.
1:54.0	It's a great little book. I recommend it to you. It's not that long to read.
2:00.0	It's got some really sharp points,
2:02.6	which I'm going to try and push a little bit today. But Richard, thank you so much for coming.
2:08.0	I confess we're going to have another slight middle American accent.
2:11.3	Yeah. Tell me, Richard, how did you, tell me a little bit. Where did you grow up and how did you
2:15.8	come to America and be who you are?
2:18.9	Well, first of all, just a delight to be on, Andrew. Thank you. I'm a huge, huge fan.
2:23.7	And I don't think anything I do associated with the book will make my wife prouder than this interview.
2:30.5	So job done.
2:31.7	Love to your wife. I'm in your debt already. Maybe your son's
2:36.4	less so. I don't know. They appear in your book a little bit and they're kind of fascinating.
	...

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