Richard Reeves

To address this issue, Reeves proposed a mass recruitment effort to encourage men to enter education professions, much like the initiatives that have sought to increase female participation in STEM fields. These jobs fall under what he calls the HEAL sector — health, education, administration, and literacy — areas in urgent need of male representation, especially given the mental health issues affecting young men today.

Since the onset of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s, the societal script for how men and women navigate the world was effectively “torn up.” For women, Reeves noted, this new script replaced an old, limiting narrative with an empowering message that girls could be anything they dreamed of. Unfortunately, this same shift has not yet occurred for boys. “As a result, we have a lot of men now who are trying to figure out what it means [to be a man],” he said.

Reeves pointed to one of his most alarming statistics to underscore the importance of a clear sense of purpose and societal value: suicide rates among men are four times higher than those for women. “We’re losing about 40,000 men a year in the U.S. to deaths from suicide,” he said. “Which is about the same as the death rate from breast cancer.”

“Feeling unneeded is probably the most tragic feeling that anybody can feel and probably the most fatal,” Reeves stated. “Everybody needs to be needed. Just because we’re going to be needed in a new way now, thank goodness, doesn’t mean we can inadvertently send a message to boys and young men that we don’t need [them] anymore. That does not end well.”

Reeves emphasized that the problems facing boys and men are real. “They’re not the confections of some online manosphere folks,” he said. “They’re in the data.”

“We can continue to be passionate about women’s rights and compassionate about what’s happening with our boys and men,” Reeves concluded. “We do not want young men and women being told that the problems they’ve got are the fault of the others. We are driving a wedge between young men and young women by saying, ‘Yes you’ve got problems and it’s their fault.’

In the long run, Reeves argued, “the future isn’t female, and nor can the future be male. The future has to be for all of us. If we’re going to rise at all, we have to rise together.”

Continuing the Conversation

Before watching this program, did you believe boys and men are falling behind? Did your perspective change at all after tuning in?

What issues do you see boys and young men facing today that you, your parents, or your grandparents might not have faced? What do you think we need to do as a society to address those issues?

How have you seen the role of fathers evolve in recent decades?

Reeves believes using the term “toxic masculinity” is counterproductive. “Very few boys and men are likely to react well to the idea that there is something toxic inside them that needs to be exorcised.” What are your thoughts on “toxic masculinity”?