Of Boys and Men

A Book of the Year 2022 in The Economist and Daily Mail

'One of the most important non-fiction books of the year' - Sunday Times

Boys are 50% more likely than girls to fail at all three key school subjects: maths, reading and science

In the US, the wages of most men are lower today than they were in 1979, while women's wages have risen across the board

In the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45

Boys are falling behind at school and college because the educational system is structed in ways that put them at a disadvantage. Men are struggling in the labour market because of an economic shift away from traditionally male jobs. And fathers are dislocated because the cultural role of family provider has been hollowed out. The male malaise is not the result of a mass psychological breakdown, but of deep structural challenges.

Structural challenges require structural solutions, and this is what Richard V. Reeves proposes in Of Boys and Men - starting boys at school a year later than girls; getting more men into caring professions; rethinking the role of fatherhood outside of a nuclear family context.

Feminism has done a huge amount of good in the world. We now need its corollary - a positive vision of masculinity that is compatible with gender equality.

Auteur

Richard Reeves is Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, in Washington D.C.. A transplanted Brit, his former roles include Director of Strategy to the Deputy Prime Minister, and Director of the think-tank Demos. In 2017, Politico magazine named Richard one of the top 50 thinkers in the U.S. for his work on class and inequality.

His most recent book, Dream Hoarders, was a 'Book of the Year' in The Economist and the Observer, and he is also the author of John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand, which was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize.

A father to three sons, Richard lives with his family in Chevy Chase, Maryland, U.S.

Texte du rabat

Of Boys and Men is a groundbreaking analysis of how the social and economic world of men has been turned upside down, leaving them adrift and underpowered. Previous attempts to treat this condition, from all political angles, have made the same fatal mistake - of viewing the problems of men as a problem with men. This book shows how the basic social structures defining masculine maturity and success have been shattered, and how they can - and must - be reinvented.

The book draws on a careful analysis of social, economic and demographic trends; the latest thinking on gender in psychology, public policy, economics and sociology; as well as on interviews with men and women, girls and boys. In particular, it examines the worrying signs that males are less responsive to social programs and policies intended to promote economic mobility.

Of Boys and Men thus reveals to a general readership for the first time the shocking failure of many social programs to help men, even as they lift up women. Something close to a conspiracy of silence in the social sciences has kept this a secret. It ends with an urgent manifesto for a new model of masculinity that is both pro-male and pro-equality: for parents, for women, law-makers - and for men themselves.