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The data are clear: The boys are not all right

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#71

Post by zozbot234 »

bmj wrote: post #54
alphabettsy wrote: post #20

Purely anecdotal, but it was uncool, dorky, nerdy, etc. where I grew up for boys to be interested in math or even English, but “more manly stuff” like working with your hands was highly encouraged. It seems that kind of culture will result in men being less likely to end up in higher paying careers.l than girls who are being encouraged to pursue STEM.

You do realize that a career in the skilled trades can lead to very good pay, right? Yes, the work can be hard, and the hours sometimes long, but there are very clear paths to working independently, or for small shops/contractors that provide a nice degree of independence and good pay. I think high school kids in the U.S. should be exposed to STEM, the humanities, and the trades. We have pushed college/academic achie…

> You do realize that a career in the skilled trades can lead to very good pay, right?

Only if you can start your independent business, which few can do pretty much by definition. That's still a recipe for bimodal outcomes. And the U.S. has pushed "college achievement" on paper, but their K-12 education still sucks. There's no way that this isn't a drag on college outcomes.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#72

Post by Jtsummers »

paulcole wrote: post #7
Santosh83 wrote: post #2

Effect of dwindling & non-existent male role models and more importantly, fathers.

Why is this an issue? Aren't good role models good role models regardless of gender/sex?

People are emotional creatures, not rational ones. Like it or not, there is an outsized influence on (especially) young people when they do or do not see people "like them" (gender, ethnicity, immigration status, nation of origin, etc.) in various roles. And this is also exaggerated by society. If a boy is in a community where it's "common knowledge" that men are stupid, deadbeat, bums, then no one will be surprised if he acts in a way that indicates he's heading in the same direction. No one will intervene on his behalf, and he will (statistically, not universally) act in a way that conforms to those expectations.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#73

Post by bell-cot »

Spooky23 wrote: post #26

Of course. We treat females like they are a marginalized minority. My son’s school has a “Girls Can Code” program. All collateral features women and girls. (Boys are welcome though) I worked at a place where a C-level executive hosted company endorsed dinners at her home for female managers to mentor them for executive roles. If I setup a boys club for computers at school or hosted a men’s IT society at work, that wo…

Special "Help $Gender enter $Field_Where_Gender_Is_Rare" stuff makes sense, if (for whatever reason) it seems that having some fields highly gender-skewed is undesirable. And whatever the PC / ideological reaction, programs aimed the other way sound like a waste of resources.

Or maybe there are a bunch of "convince women that nursing is a career for them, too", "day care workers shouldn't all be men", "ladies can become receptionists", etc. programs that I'm not aware of.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#74

Post by reducesuffering »

bmj wrote: post #60
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it can be a great arrangement. It will slow down his dating prospects though, who can host if a relationship gets serious is a common discussion in dating.

Dating for the 18-21 cohort, outside of the university setting, is already very challenging. Truth be told, some of the women my son has dated in this cohort also live at home.

Very challenging? Most couples have a car between them and a whole lot of appetite for adventure and risque.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#75

Post by birdyrooster »

zozbot234 wrote: post #56
BitwiseFool wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of these men and I hope this actually works out in the end. I sense that men also have a biological clock but we can reassure ourselves that we can keep putting off settling down because of the biological reality of male reproduction. If I just get a little more successful, then I will be more attractive in courtship. But the thing is, you lose track of time really quickly. And, it is quite the bootstrapping…

> Being awkward around women in High School is a given, but as a thirty-something it can be profoundly uncomfortable and off-putting. Males should be fixing that by making some female friends. Don't go the "creepy incel who hates all women and Chads" route.

Try that in a town with double the men that there are women. Easier to switch hit.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#76

Post by vixen99 »

gtsop wrote: post #45
dang wrote: post #14

Here's the full Orwell quote. People are wrong when they think that an unemployed man only worries about losing his wages; on the contrary, an illiterate man, with the work habit in his bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is one of the worst evils of poverty. But a man like Paddy, with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of work as a d…

Quoted post unavailable.

How about saying why instead of assuming your 'Wow' point is so obvious everyone will agree?

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#77

Post by UncleMeat »

commandlinefan wrote: post #29

> As men’s unemployment rises, their romantic prospects decline. Conversely: as young men's potential future employability rises, their romantic prospects also decline. That is - the men who'll grow up to be stable and reliable have lonely teenage years.

Is this actually true? This feels a bit like a post-facto generalization from specific situations. "I was a nerd and didn't go on dates. Being a nerd got me into software and now I make a lot of money. Therefore people who are on the path to high earning are not getting dates."

My experience has been that a lot of the stereotypical jocks ended up in finance and are doing quite well and that software is no longer dominated by social loners.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#78

Post by lph »

Spooky23 wrote: post #26

Of course. We treat females like they are a marginalized minority. My son’s school has a “Girls Can Code” program. All collateral features women and girls. (Boys are welcome though) I worked at a place where a C-level executive hosted company endorsed dinners at her home for female managers to mentor them for executive roles. If I setup a boys club for computers at school or hosted a men’s IT society at work, that wo…

> hosted a men’s IT society at work

Maybe, just maybe, the point of those events for women has something to do with the fact that everything else in the tech world is a de-facto boys' club.

My current team at work: 6 men. Previous team at a different company: 27 men, 3 women. The team before that: 5 men. The team before that: 10 men, 2 women.

I guess we can debate "marginalized", but women are unquestionably a minority in tech.

(I am also a man, fwiw)

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#79

Post by jeffbee »

ramesh31 wrote: post #27

Men's comparative advantage, throughout human history, has always been their physical strength. It was the one thing a man could count on to provide value to society. That is no longer the case in our modern economy. You need intelligence, emotional intellect, and analytical skills. All of which men and women are on an equal footing at. So when you remove the ability to generate a viable income through physical labor…

Males have biological advantages in visual-spatial thinking. "Rotators vs. wordcels" is not just a weird meme.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#80

Post by buscoquadnary »

rootusrootus wrote: post #23
trentnix wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. In all the talk of racial or gender privilege, the most beneficial privilege a person can enjoy is the benefits of a loving, supportive, traditional two-parent household (there is insufficient data on non-traditional two-parent households). You can see a direct correlation in outcomes when comparing children that emerged from two-parent households over those that emerge from single-parent households. But because…

I wonder how much of that comes down to 1.5-2x the income compared to a single parent household, versus the beneficial effect of two role models.

I have small children I also make a pretty respectable Software Engineering salary, my kids have no real understanding of that. They just know Daddy works and has a job they don't really understand the finances, and seem just as content in the home we purchased recently as they did when we were living in an apartment, for them the realities of finances don't have major impact in their day to day lives.

In contrast my mother works in a Title 1 Elementary school[2], she spends much of her day dealing with children that are in chronically bad situations, it has been her observation that the biggest problem is that no one cares about the kids, not in a the parents hate them sense, but there is no one actively concerned with and thinking about and preparing for the child's future, there are all sorts of resources the school makes available to try and help these kids but it doesn't matter much because no one is invested.

When you have only one parent that one parent has is the sole person responsible for helping prepare that child, investing in that child, and guiding the child, and that kind of work is exhausting. It can be done my own mother is evidence of that, but when you have two parents now you don't have to be the point man on it all day every day you can share that burden with someone else, you have someone to help bear the burden when it is too much for you, and that shares the load.

That I think is an important part of what having a two parent household rather than a one parent household brings, even if finances aren't great it still means there is someone that can invest in the child.

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