Young Men in the Modern day
Young men are in serious trouble. They are dropping out of society at an alarming rate. Young men are not dating, they are not having sex, and they prefer to stay at home playing video games. Many are classed as NEETs - Not in Education, Employment or Training.
One in five under 25 year old men in the US are unemployed, despite having graduated from college. In a time when the participation of Gen Z female college graduates in work has steadily increased, men's participation has taken a nosedive.
The reasons for this are complex but young men are in a crisis of confidence. The true levels of fear about women but also the outside world, are significant. Often, they have no father figures. Coupled with porn addictions and being terminally online, you can easily see how this occurs.
This is a significant problem going forwards as this group of the population are most ripe for radicalisation, and already we are seeing young men turn towards alt-right parties in Germany, South Korea and the Netherlands.
How we solve this will be a problem for many years to come. But I would think this is the result of three clearly identifiable factors:
Young men have been mollycoddled.
In an effort to rightfully help young women, men have been left behind.
Social Media
At University my flatmate every Friday would go home with a suitcase full of empty containers and clothes, then return on Monday with his meals for the week and all his clothes cleaned. From memory, he did not cook a single meal. Boys are treated differently than girls; the chores, if they are given any, are separated by gender. Often reported by young girls is that once they are of age, they are expected to act like a second mother, doing the cooking and the cleaning, whereas young boys are often let off scot-free.
This then compounds when they go to university or move out, as they do not know how to care for themselves and seem unwilling to do so. They have no agency in life. This lack of agency permeates everything they do - whether that be getting a job, doing laundry, working out, or simply flirting with someone. They have been handed everything on a plate and, as a result, expect everything to be handed to them.
It also manifests in young men being slobs, unable to clean up after themselves they live in filth. Yet wonder why they struggle romantically or professionally.
Society over the last 20 years has rightfully focused on helping young women. There are still levels at which more effort can be made. However, in education, women are far outperforming men. 58% of undergraduate enrolment in the US is women, 53% of PhDs are women, and the majority of law students are women. This rise in the educational standards of women is impressive, but it has been accompanied by a decline in men's performances.
There is the bad economic news: most American men earn less today (adjusted for inflation) than most men did in 1979. This is not because of the mass entry of women in the workplace, but because of the hollowing out of traditional male jobs—factory worker, steelworker, coal miner—as a result of free trade and automation.
But male troubles are not just economic. Almost one in four school boys are diagnosed as having a “developmental disability.” One in five fathers is not living with his children. Men are at three times greater risk than women from the epidemic of “deaths of despair,” from suicide, alcohol, and drugs.
Richard V Reeves
Richard V Reeves, author of 'Of Boys and Men' (highly recommend), argues that the cause of this is the structure of education. Essentially, the current system highly favours young girls who mature faster and are better suited towards academics. Therefore, there should be more emphasis on technical skills and practical education for young men.
Additionally, the lack of men in what he calls HEAL (health, education, administration, and literacy) jobs leads to boys associating them as solely women jobs meaning they won’t persue those fields. There is now more women in STEM than there are men teaching in secondary. The result is young boys often lack a good role model, as there are so few male teachers.
The effect of a good teacher cannot be underestimated. From my own circumstances, I can point to multiple male teachers who have had a positive effect both on my education and my understanding of masculinity, in a way none of my female teachers did. I personally wouldn’t be working in politics without the influence of my History teacher at GCSE.
This is also whilst having a wonderful father, uncles, brother, and strong group of male friends. You need a support network to help you. But young boys have become slowly isolated with no male support system and have suffered as a consequence.
Social media is a highlight reel alongside a sales vector. Its algorithms are optimised to get you to interact, whether that be commenting or purchasing. This is a nuance most understand, but something young people don’t. They have grown up thinking what they see online is the norm.
Boys have learned to think that for women, they must be 6-foot, make £100k, drive a Porsche, etc. Social media is constantly feeding them videos of young women - often in jest - saying, "Oh, I would only date a man who is six foot," or videos of rage-bait influencers who say that if you don’t earn a million a year, you are worthless. This constant stream of media makes them doubt the value of their own lives and turns them resentful.
The rabbit hole social media sends them down is so different to anything you or I would see on a day-to-day basis that they might as well be on a different internet.
Social media also feeds them these beautiful women, leading young boys to expect that they 'deserve' those women. This has then spawned a whole industry of content creators who cater specifically towards this, with OnlyFans creators doing these extreme challenges clearly aimed at drumming up interest, or red-pill creators who spew hate towards women.
They are fed a media diet of pure garbage leading them to treat women (and even men) with pure vitriol and isolating themselves from society. I will spare you from reading their comments, but it's clear that young men have become severely hateful.
This is, of course, not to say that young men as a cohort are ruined. I know many truly amazing young men, who work interesting jobs, have loving partners, participate in society and are truly wonderful people that I am glad to know and call friends.
But there is an undercurrent of young men who are truly struggling - that most people (who are not chronically online) do not see, nor ever interact with. This is a serious issue that will affect politics and society to come. One only has to look briefly at South Korea, whose young men are strongly turning to the right in opposition to women, to understand the future the West is heading towards.