Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The data are clear: The boys are not all right

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 1001 posts

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

#141

Post by zozbot234 »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #112
lph wrote: post #46

Andrew Yang makes some good points in this piece, particularly about positive masculinity and role models. Whether fair or not, the perception that the left is hostile to men has driven recruitment for the far right, and that merits some reflection. But he's also really facile about underlying economic causes. It's easy to blame problems on "our culture has been broken by the wokes!", but many of the problems of youn…

I've coached high school sports teams, both boys and girls, for the last two decades. I've seen some of these trends unfold over the years with my student athletes. My observation is girls are just more motivated than boys, even for something fun like sports practices and workouts, girls in general will show up more consistently than boys. The teachers I've spoken to at the school where I coach have confirmed the sam…

High school is a pretty special timeframe where girls on average have more conscientious, adult-like mindsets that their equally-aged male peers. That's a recipe for educational success too. But it doesn't last - males do catch up eventually and might even do better.

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

#142

Post by bitwize »

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.

Hey, sports teach valuable life skills -- life skills the socially awkward often miss out on. Things like grit, teamwork, and not being a sore loser, as well as the importance of keeping your body in shape. In fact we are having a crisis of not enough boys doing sports, and as a consequence elite military units can't find enough recruits who meet the baseline physical fitness standards.

A reasonably intelligent person with an athletic background probably did well socially in HS, and will probably do well in the working world.

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

#143

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

awinter-py wrote: post #32

great book on this topic is friedan's feminine mystique (1963). She wrote about the spiritual crisis affecting a generation of young women who were more likely to be 'homemakers' than their mothers. worth reading at least the intro IMO for anyone who feels dissatisfied with their work / life / contribution not sure how yang made this his topic. my sense of his random walk is 'had a job at yahoo' -> future of work ->…

Did Andrew Yang work at Yahoo sure your not thinking of Jerry Yang?

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

#144

Post by frankbreetz »

johncessna wrote: post #17
frankbreetz wrote: post #5

>>Median wages for men have declined since 1990 in real terms. Roughly one-third of men are either unemployed or out of the workforce. I wonder how much of this is because more women are joining the workforce. If men are leaving the workforce by their own free will because their wife is working and they are staying home with the kids, both of these facts could be true, but seems like a win in both gender equality ter…

> More U.S. men ages 18 to 34 are now living with their parents than with romantic partners. and > Research shows that one significant factor women look for in a partner is a steady job. As men’s unemployment rises, their romantic prospects decline. Unsurprisingly, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from 1960 to 2010, the proportion of adults without a college degree who marry plummeted from just ove…

More of all 18-34 year olds are staying with their parents, not just men[0], so this may be a problem of unavailable housing or some other non-gender specific problem.

[0]https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/censu...

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

#145

Post by RadixDLT »

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…

I'm sorry but you are grossly mistaken when you say this, maybe it's true for the bottom half of men.

"You need intelligence, emotional intellect, and analytical skills. All of which men and women are on an equal footing at."

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

#148

Post by trabant00 »

I pitty todays boys. The entire world from school to internet has something against being playfull, hyper active, agressively competitive, and all the other things that boys are by nature. One fight and here comes therapy and even meds.

I would be crucified for what I did as a youth even though nobody got hurt and I turned out to be a top 1% productive member of society.

Today being a docile beast of burden is the only acceptable option. If not completely in practice at least ideologically. Most comply but increasingly more choose to opt out of society or worse: become hypocrits and schemers that comply in appearence but cross any boundary in secret practice. If most rules are stupid they might all be. Rational conclusion for a boy.

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

#149

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #99
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…

Girls and women are marginalised in the area of technology. This site in particular has hosted terabytes of discussion of this problem. If you look back at some of the stories about conferences and why codes of conduct have been set up, you will see at least part of the publicly visible part of this. This is why it’s perfectly socially acceptable to set up a specific group to give women and girls a chance to learn sk…

Women marginalized in technology was mostly bullshit abuse of statistics. It is just being assumed that fewer women has to be the result of discrimination. It is not.

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

#150

Post by ytwombly »

US-based cis-hetero white man here. The data reinforce the impression you get glancing at the headlines or spending a day out anywhere in America observing other men. Dare I say it even reinforces what I know from painful firsthand experience as a man, at the lowest points in my life. I was lucky though, with a supportive family who helped me through the confusing years of early adulthood.

You can point to the decline of organized religion and with it traditional gender roles, but then what explains the relative stability in post-Christian Europe? The China Shock combined with America's threadbare social safety net starts looking more salient. We have inherited a much less trusting, much more alienated society than you are likely to find overseas.

Whatever the cause I fully reject the lazy conclusion this is somehow women's fault. The "Lump of Labor" fallacy is just that, a fallacy. Economic gains are not zero-sum.

Post reply on HN