Do men need equal opportunity? Dr. Richard Reeves answers with an emphatic “yes.” His work as senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative has encouraged him to author the book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It. 

In this conversation, Grant and Dr. Reeves respond to the fact that men are underrepresented in higher education and struggling in the professional world, asking: What does affirmative action for men look like? How does child education harm or empower boys, and is the academic world donning a feminine identity? Should we celebrate “toxic” masculinity?

Modernity calls for a new contract between men and women. What is the fate of the post-industrial man?

2:24 - Men as a category experienced a seven times bigger drop in college enrollment than women in 2020. However, “it's nobody's job to draw that fact to anybody's attention.”

5:48 - Being male is the “single biggest risk factor for dropping out of college,” over race or socioeconomic background.

6:00 - Encouraging affirmative action in male faculty and access to mental health services can combat male underrepresentation in fields such as nursing, 

7:27 - DEI offices should include men as a population of interest, especially when sex intersects with class.

8:30 - K-12 schooling predicts gender gaps in college.

9:08 - Boys develop later than girls.

9:30 - Having male teachers may help boys learn. However, since 24% of K-12 teachers are men, boys have fewer male teachers, especially in subjects in which they struggle, such as English.

9:55 - Because boys generally have applied learning styles, “the underinvestment in vocational learning, technical high schools,” and “apprenticeships” disadvantages boys.

12:03 - Homeschooling allows parents to tailor education to their child’s individual needs.

12:31 - The story of the men and women pay gap is a parenting story. The stay-at-home partner will necessarily suffer an impact on earnings.

16:54 - While working-class men struggle in the modern shifting dynamic, “men with more resources are able to come up with better answers and negotiate this new world without paying such a high price.”

20:30 - Current issues of fatherhood, family, labor market and position in working-class white families have been predicted by the challenges of black families.

21:42 - Masculinity has been uniquely pathologized among black men.

22:22 - While many working-class men without access to higher education could benefit from going to college, their prospects can also be improved by investment in apprenticeships, community colleges, vocational training (ie. through programs such as the Apprenticeship Bill).

24:53 - There is a danger of “an identity problem” for higher education; as it becomes female-dominated, “the very idea of academic excellence starts to be seen as feminine.” 

25:41 - The statement, “Biologically, men are more oriented toward things, women, more oriented toward people” is true but not prescriptive.

26:31 - An equal society does not need to have a 50/50 distribution of professions between men and women, but rather allow individuals to choose according to their interests.

33:48 - “Masculinity is always more fragile. It's always more socially constructed. It's always a bigger cultural task to construct masculinity than femininity.” Men need a new script for masculinity.

37:06 - Government should facilitate the choice of fathers and mothers to stay at home for child rearing.

39:21 - Modern masculinity will result from encouraging men to acquire skills, self-knowledge and autonomy.

41:05 - Intentional fatherhood is central for a sense of purpose and structure in men’s lives.

42:21 - The fear of declining birth rates reflects a discomfort with society’s lack of zeal for life.

44:26 - Part of the reason for this malaise is that society has not cleaned up after the revolution of the contract between men and women. 

45:10 - “If the virtues that lead someone to be willing to run into a burning building are toxic, then God help us all.” Rather than being termed as “toxic,” men’s statistically greater willingness to lay down their lives should be celebrated.

 46:39 - Supporting people who do not label themselves as male or female does not exclude maintaining the idea of masculinity and femininity.

48:39 - Equating struggling men with the men violating the Capital on January 6, 2020 is problematic, “because most men are not acting out, they're checking out.”

Beatrice Institute is supported in part by Henne Jewelers and The Pittsburgh Foundation.