As a child, I used to watch 1950s TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and the Donna Reed Show. In these quintessential shows, the man of the family was stern, yet kind, composed, and masculine. It seems like men had it all and their wives were content raising the family and not having to endure the stressors of work. Men were able to avoid the stressors of crying babies and cooking. The sexes seemed to complement one another. Things have changed in a half century. Women are working en masse and have found financial independence. Have men fallen behind due to this and other factors? Not sure but let’s look at the question if “Are Men Falling behind?”
If you posit the question to a feminist “Are Men Falling behind?” they would scoff. We live in a patriarchy where everything is run, determined, and controlled by men. We have only had male presidents. Most in Congress are male. Most CEOs are male.
If you look at those indicators, men seem to be in charge. However, some statistical indicators are rather worrisome….that is if you are not a radical feminist. “Are Men Falling behind?” Let’s see.
Prisons are largely populated by men.
Boys have lower grades.
Boys are put on psychotropic drugs, like antidepressants, ADHD, ADD, at an earlier age. (Learn more about the dangers of psychotropic drugs HERE.)
Boys have a higher rate of dropping out of school.
Women now have a higher rate of garnering undergraduate, graduate, law, and medical degrees disproportionately.
Men have a disproportionate higher amount of suicide attempts and successes.
Men have higher rates of alcoholism and drug use.
Men die younger.
Feminist Attack In Alaska
I remember when I was a graduate student at the University of Alaska twenty years ago, I had a college professor who wrote a book about how young boys were falling behind. She explained how boys were falling behind in elementary school because the predominately female teachers were either knowingly/unknowingly discriminating against the boys.
Why/how? We all know boys are more hyperactive and restless. The teachers didn’t want to deal with the activity of the boys; they loved the dutiful respect and focus of young girls. So teachers would either grade boys worse for given activities and/or they would diagnose them (via the school psychologist) with ADD.
This was done, perhaps in earnest, to help the boy, but the result was that more young boys were being medicated by strong psychiatric drugs. Drugs that have side effects…drugs that make them more predisposed to get hooked on amphetamines and meth since the ADD drugs ARE amphetamines.
Girls, per my old professor, were given preferential treatment in class; boys were tolerated, ignored or stigmatized. As a result, many boys became “turned off” by school as they began to fall behind. They also saw school as a “girl thing.”
When my old professor quoted the statistical indicators in which I enumerated earlier to her colleagues and the university in general, she was met with vitriol by the feminists. They maintained her studies were flawed or bias; that in fact men control everything and would continue to do so for the indefinite future. “Are Men Falling Behind?” Per her, yes they were and it was going to get worse.
Anecdotal Evidence
From my own experience as a high school teacher 20 years later, I can honestly say that the aforementioned are seen at my school. If I looked at the Top 10 averages in each of my class, 8 would consistently be female.
Boys, by the time, they have entered high school have largely given up on note taking, studying for tests, etc. They simply have fallen to behind. The boys are also the ones causing the most disruption at school, bringing the violence and drugs.
Of course, this could be reflective of the male tendency to have access to and have a proclivity toward violence and drugs. Nevertheless, most in-school suspension, detentions, calls to parents, etc are for boys. From an anecdotal personal view to the answer of “Are Men Falling behind?” The answer is “yes.”
One of the side reasons for boys falling behind is gaming addiction. We have a Holistic Health News (HNN) episode on the Blight of Gaming Addiction amongst not just young boys, but adult men. The average age of a gamer is 37-years-of-age. Boys play hours on end.
I played the original NES as a child, but the extent and duration of gaming has been taken to a whole new level since gaming can now be portable….on your phone or Nintendo Switch. This is a problem. Hours spent playing instead of learning or studying.
Other Factors
Pornography is another huge problem with young boys. It is never spoken about in high school staff development meetings, but porn addiction is pervasive among the male population. It is now only 3 clicks away on the phone or desktop. Once those initial images are seared into the brain of a young boy, the road to addiction is practically inevitable. I once read that the average age a boy sees porn for the first time is age 8. This needs to be addressed. Listen to this HHN episode on porn.
Lack of father figures is another issue. The illegitimacy rate in America is around 40% with the Black population being close to 2/3rd of all births. Boys are lacking father figures to emulate. This is problematic on a host of psychosexual and developmental levels.
So there seems to be multiple factors which are causing boys to fall behind. Boys leave high school less prepared than the females. The high schools have largely gutted the vocational problems like auto mechanic, HVAC, plumbing, etc that once was a haven for hands-on boys.
The typical 18-year-old boy goes to college but drops out from the remedial classes since they are not prepared. They largely then get part-time jobs at dead-end “careers” and live at home for years, if not decades. Some turn to petty crime to pay the bills or welfare. They are angry at society for letting them down.
Men are falling behind. Perhaps we don’t see it now since those who run our society are largely Boomers and Gen-Xers who didn’t have to deal with as much the issues of today’s youth. But certainly in 20-30 years, I see a couple of patterns developing.
Patterns and Predictions
Most men will be long-income, poorly educated manual laborers and contractors. Females will largely occupy the higher social stratum with most positions in government and white color jobs. Men will be used for their brute force and strength and for siring the future generation. Similar to the eerie movie, Wicker Man, men will be resorted to manual and sex slavery for the benefit of women.
Most boys will be in an even worse educational situation, especially those in the public school system. They will be even more overly medicated on drugs.
Vis-à-vis marriage, the institution will be decimated…even more than it is today. No default divorce was the worse legislative decision for men. Now, any woman at any time, can divorce a man out of boredom, “unfulfillment,” or other non legitimate abusive reasons.
The result….the man loses 50% of this money in community property states, will only see his kids 4 days a month, and might have to pay alimony to a woman who initiated the divorce and might even make more money than he.
You can see why the “Manosphere” is growing daily. You hear daily of cases such as these where well-intentioned men are “divorced rape” by their wives and taken to the cleaners. Bereft of their children and much of their money and earning potential, these men become depressed and distrustful of future relationships. Similar to the Herbivore movement in Japan or MGTOW in the Anglo world, they just isolate and “check out.”
Please do not attack me. Ladies, about the legitimate reasons to divorce an abusive, narcissistic man and/or your horror stories about philandering husbands. I understand there are bad cases on both sides.
What I’m saying is that marriage is a risky venture for men, more so than women. Women can always fall back on the State to support them, plus child support/alimony and a large network of friends to support them. Men tend to isolate, as is our nature. We are taught not to complain and to bear our cross with dignity. This is one of the reasons why addiction and suicide is so high with men.
I never understood why it was a zero-sum game. Why can only women excel as the expense of boys? Vice/Versa. There are few men in this world who don’t support gender equality in opportunity. Most feel women should be able to enter into contracts without a man, to be able to vote, etc.
The fact that I’m answering the question “Are Men Falling behind?” as a “yes” does not make me a misogynist. I’m simply stating that I am very concerned about the future of men in the Western world. And if you have sons, brothers, uncles, you should be as well.