Boys are going from female-dominated home environments to female-dominated school environments, back to female-dominated home environments—where boys are being told to behave.
When our book Man Interrupted was published in 2016, concern over boy’s and men’s issues, however legitimate, could not have been more unpopular. It’s a new world out there for everybody, yet amidst the shifting economic, social, and technological climates, boys are getting left behind. There are a record number of young men that are flaming out academically, wiping out socially with girls, and later failing in relationships with women.
Major symptoms that we see include: a disenchantment with education, lack of motivation to work towards real-life goals, opting out of the workforce, self-imposed social isolation, and excessive video game and porn use (which we will discuss in a separate blog post).
From our conversations with young men and our research, we determined that in our culture today, “boy energy” is at best not valued and at worse demonized. In response, young men are deciding that it’s not worth it for them to invest their time and energy back into society. Many are asking what is in it for them and only hearing crickets.
