Richard V. Reeves – Of Boys And Men (2022)
Het boek legt uit waarom het toekomstperspectief voor de gemiddelde jonge(ma)n thans substantieel verschilt van dat uit het verleden. De auteur bespreekt de status praesens op basis van nature en nurture. Zeker de moeite waard voor alle ouders (vaders) van zoons.
For many couples, marriage now serves primarily as a ‘capstone’ to a series of educational, social, and economic achievements
A common tactic for defusing white fear of black masculinity is to wear glasses with clear lenses
Men on their own tend to be men alone
Even though male psychology is more wired for risk, this usually tips into antisocial forms of risk-taking (i.e., crime) only in circumstances of intense competition
Four major failings of the political left on issues related to boys and men:
- a tendency to pathologize naturally occurring aspects of masculine identity, usually under the banner of toxic masculinity;
- male problems are seen as the result of individual failings of one kind or another, rather than of structural challenges;
- an unwillingness to acknowledge any biological basis for sex difference;
- a fixed conviction that gender inequality can only run one way, that is, to the disadvantage of women.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) calculates an index for gender inequality for each nation across four domains: economics, education, health, and politics. The score is between 0 (complete inequality) and 1 (complete equality). However, if women have surpassed men, the score remains 1 (instead of being between 1 and 2).
Three big weaknesses in the approach of the political right to the growing problems faced by boys and men:
- fueling male grievances for political gain, which simply creates more anger and discontent;
- over-weighing the importance of biological sex differences for gender roles (mirroring the progressive tendency to dismiss them altogether);
- seeing the solution in the past rather than in the future, in the form of a restoration of traditional economic relations between male providers and female carers.
The gender gap in learning opens up quite early, but the biggest difference – in terms of brain development – occur in adolescence. Introducing a 1-year chronological age gap would reduce the developmental age gap between boys and girls. The main reason for starting boys later (i.e., ‘redshirting’) is not that they will be a year older in kindergarten, it is so they will be a year older when they get to high school.
Female teachers are more likely than male teachers to see the boys in their class as disruptive, while male teachers tend to have a more positive view of boys and their capabilities
While fathers and mothers can do many of the same things, dads are wired to make two distinct contributions: protection and teaching