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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
[Auto-Generated Transcript]
[00:00:00] David Sirota: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Lever Time. I'm David Sirota. On today's show, we're going to be talking about a topic that's been simmering beneath the surface of our national conversation, yet it holds profound implications for our society. We're talking about the crises. Facing men and boys in America.
[00:00:27] Unfortunately, the American right has dominated the conversation about this topic and some folks on the left just try to avoid it for fear of being criticized for daring to talk about men and masculinity as if talking about that topic is somehow insulting or unacceptable. I think it's immoral to avoid such an important topic.
[00:00:47] So my guest today is going to be the author of the fascinating new book called of boys and men. Why the modern male is struggling, why it matters, and what to do about it. We explore the data showing that men and boys as a group in America are struggling in distinct ways, and how the failure to address these very real problems is inadvertently fueling the growth.
[00:01:11] Of all right groups for our paid subscribers. We're also always dropping bonus episodes into our lever premium podcast feed. Last week, we had an interview with economist Isabella Weber, one of the first economists to raise the alarm about profit driven inflation. If you want access to our premium content, head over to lever news.
[00:01:32] com and click the subscribe button in the top, right, to become a supporting subscriber that will give you access to the lever time premium, sorry. That will give you access to the Lever premium podcast feed. It gives you access to our exclusive live events, and it gives you access to even more in depth reporting.
[00:01:49] And of course, you'll be directly supporting the investigative journalism that we do here at the Lever. Producer Frank is out of town on vacation the next couple of weeks, so we're going to go directly to our interview this week. My guest today is Richard Reeves. He's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
[00:02:07] And as I said, the author of the book of Boys and Men, why the modern male is struggling, why it matters and what to do about it. We explore the rapid reshaping of the concept of masculinity and how the issue is being manipulated. By the likes of politicians like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and how masculinity as an issue is being used as a recruiting tool for alt right groups.
[00:02:33] Richard Reeves emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues without sidelining other marginalized groups. As he says, quote, problems that are not addressed become grievances, and grievances are exploited. That's something worth thinking about.
[00:02:51] Hey Richard, thanks so much for joining us.
[00:02:56] Richard Reeves: Hey, thanks for having me on
[00:02:58] David Sirota: So it's such an important topic, and your book is really fascinating. It's called, Of Boys and Men, Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About It. It details how economic and social changes of recent decades have diminished specifically the lives of men. So that's a good place to start. What are some of the, um, most telling statistics, uh, telling signals that the modern male is struggling and specifically, uh, struggling, uh, as a, as a group, as distinct, uh, from the struggles of sort of the population writ large?
[00:03:34] Richard Reeves: Sure. Well as it's you david, let's start with the economy and the labor market where the the well told story about wage stagnation Uh is particularly cute for men. So the fact that most american men earned Less in 2019 than most american men did in 1979 That's a non trivial, economic, and I would argue therefore cultural and social fact.
[00:04:03] So wage stagnation for most men. Now, of course, it's also true that wages didn't grow that quickly for working class women by comparison to other women, but they did grow across the board. So women's wages did grow across the board, just faster at the top than at the bottom, whereas for men you actually saw wage stagnation.
[00:04:22] What that means is that the only reason that middle class American households saw any rise in their household incomes at all over that period, it was because of women. It was women's work, women's wages. If anything, Men's economic contribution became tilted slightly negative over that time period, right?
[00:04:40] So, and again, I think that's all kinds of downstream consequences. And then if we turn to something like education, what we see is that here I'm talking kind of more of a relative story than an absolute story, but a massive overtaking of, uh, girls and women, uh, of men, such that there's now a bigger gender gap.
[00:04:59] in education today than there was in 1972. So on college campuses, for example, women are further ahead of men now than men were ahead of women when we passed Title IX in 1972. So it may or may not matter. And then at the last thing, we obviously can get into these, but, but some The consequences for that are difficulty around family formation and deaths of despair.
[00:05:21] So there's been lots of discussion of deaths of despair, which is from suicide, alcohol, drugs, but maybe a little bit less attention to the fact that men are at least three times higher risk of one of those deaths of despair than women are. So, deaths of despair is largely a male, and I would again say largely a working class male problem.
[00:05:39] David Sirota: So on the wage stagnation question that, I mean, there, there's something I want to go into on that, which is to say that, There, there has been a gender wage gap for a very long time. Are you saying what we've seen, let's just use that as an example, that what we've seen is that, that not only has the gender wage gap, uh, somewhat closed, although it's not closed, uh, but it has somewhat narrowed. Not just because women's wages are going up, but also because men's wages have stagnated or actually dropped. I mean, I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that, that, that what we're seeing is, is not just a natural narrowing where men's wages continue, uh, to rise from the 1970s, which didn't happen and women's wages rise faster to close that gap.
[00:06:28] But actually this is men's wages going down. And what I'm trying to get at here is the alternate history is it could be a history of rising tides lifts all boats. I mean, I kind of hate that term, but there is an alternate history where everything is actually improving for both men and women. It just improves more quickly for women to deal with historic, uh, historic disparities.
[00:06:51] But is what you're saying that Is, for instance, on that set of issues, that's not happening. That actually, it's,
[00:06:57] Richard Reeves: Yes.
[00:06:57] David Sirota: kind of a negative story for men.
[00:06:59] Richard Reeves: Yeah, on wages specifically, and it's really important to be clear what's true about, some statistics might not be true of others, so it's not going to be true of education, for example. But in terms of earnings, yes. So, the typical way in which the gender pay gap is measured is at the median. So when people hear, so it's 82, 83 cents in the dollar, um, that women earn, uh, versus men, What's being referred to there is median, and one reason, not the main, the main reason why the gender pay gap has narrowed over the last few decades is that women's wages have risen quite sharply at the median, 30 something percent or more, but part of it is because male wages have dropped at the median, so it's, it's, that's not the main reason for the rise in narrowing, but it's one of the reasons, and, and I don't think it's controversial to suggest that that's, Bad news.
[00:07:52] And that if we'd seen, like, similar levels of women's wage growth at the median, and we hadn't seen wage stagnation for men, Actually, it's not clear to me that that would have been a worse world, right? And so, I don't think many people want to close the gender wage gap by crashing male wages. No one wants that.
[00:08:12] So it's an important, it's an important thing to note. But, but it is also, and I know this is an issue you're very interested in, David, like, at the top of the distribution, men and women have seen rising wages. Now, women even faster than men, but... But up towards that 80th percentile, 90th percentile, women have seen faster wage growth, but both men and women have seen it.
[00:08:31] So what's, my overall understanding of these trends in the labour market over the last few decades is that we've seen a narrowing of the gender wage gap. for the reasons we just discussed. And a sharp widening of the class wage gap. Right, so you're seeing these, they're pulling in different directions.
[00:08:51] So the gap between the median and the top has gotten much wider. But the gap between men and women at each level has gotten narrower. And that's why you have to think about both.
[00:09:02] David Sirota: So I, I want to ask about the, the maleness part of this, um, in looking across wages, uh, uh, jobs, uh, education levels, et cetera, et cetera, healthcare, um, uh, deaths of despair. How much of this, what we might call male malaise, is really... Related to maleness, however, we define that rather than other individual factors like economic inequality, geography, uh, again, education, right?
[00:09:40] Like, how do we narrow in on, I guess, first and foremost, what is maleness other than a biological state, but how do we really narrow in on this as a problem of, Maleness or at least a problem, uh, where the, the factor at issue, the germane factor is, is maleness.
[00:10:01] Richard Reeves: Yeah, or, yeah, so there's two different ways in which we could get at this. Like one is just Men as defined as male in the relevant data set. Okay. And then another is like, what do we mean by male? Which is a whole different set of questions. But, but for example, when we just talked at some length about the gender pay gap.
[00:10:19] Well, in order to measure the gender pay gap, you have to measure the wages of both women and men defined in a binary and compare them. So, um, so then, so I think it's a great question. And, and the. It's no, not going to be a surprise from someone who just read a whole book about boys and men and is now, I've now set up a new organization to work on the issues of boys and men.
[00:10:40] It's going to say there is enough evidence that some of these problems, a number of them, do break quite strongly. Uh, along male female lines as to justify the attention on men in particular. But it's, in the end, I think it's an empirical question that, that sometimes gets confused for a cultural question.
[00:10:59] And so these debates about, sort of, wither masculinity, which have been going on forever as far as I can tell, they don't excite me as much as the fact that the male suicide rate is four times higher than the female suicide rate, has risen by 25% in the last decade, and rose very sharply between 2020 and 2021.
[00:11:22] 8% for young men alone. And there wasn't an increase for, for women. Now that isn't to say that female suicide isn't a problem. Of course not. And it, we'd never say that if it was the other way around, but it is to say, okay, when you see a fourfold gap, Okay. And, and what, sometimes people will say, well, you know, I'm drawing attention to the gaps in education, some of which are, you know, the data I referred to earlier, people will say, well, you know, no one cared when it was the other way around, when women were that far behind men.
[00:11:52] And I, to that, my honest answer is, yeah, people did care. And we did a whole bunch of stuff about it, and quite rightly too. We passed laws, we had, you know, significant campaigns to try and overcome it. Like, we look, we looked at those gaps in education and said, hold on, that's, that doesn't look right. I did something about it.
[00:12:09] And so, to some extent, it becomes an empirical question as to like, is there enough of a gender gap here on whatever the issue is to say, hmm, yeah, we should look, we should look at that. And I would say the same is true the other way around. For example, like, there are lots of issues. The gender pay gap we've just talked about.
[00:12:25] Just because 40% of women earn more than the average man now doesn't mean there isn't still an issue about gender pay gaps. And by definition, that's mostly about women. And there are lots of other issues, access to
[00:12:37] David Sirota: Right. I mean, both things can be true at the same time, right? I
[00:12:40] Richard Reeves: Exactly. Two,
[00:12:40] David Sirota: a problem with a gender pay gap, and there can be a problem with, with, with what you're talking about when it comes to men, men actually having their wages go down. Two things can be true at the same time.
[00:12:50] Richard Reeves: it's just seeing that pattern. So, you know, it's a bit of a wonk. I'd look at the data on it and say, is there a strong enough pattern here to make you think, okay, this is worthy of looking at it through that lens. And if it doesn't pass that test, okay, and there'll be a whole bunch of issues where you're like, actually, there isn't much to see here in terms of gender, right?
[00:13:09] But there are other issues where there clearly is in one direction or the other. And then I think we should be gender sensitive. That said, we should of course also look at how that intersects by class, by race, etc. So we might talk about the gender pay gap, but we shouldn't forget the fact that white women now earn a lot more than black men.
[00:13:28] And even more than black women, right? And that wasn't true in 1979. So white women have seen very strong increases in their wages, such that there's now for every dollar earned by a white woman, a black man earns about 84 cents, which is similar to the gender gap. Now, the point of that is not to say that the gender gap isn't important and real.
[00:13:45] It is just to say that it's very important that we don't look at these things just through one lens, but try to look at them through different lenses.
[00:13:51] David Sirota: Yeah. And our, our media and political culture is always looking for zero sum. Oh, if you're talking about this problem, it means it implies you don't care about this other problem. It's like, actually there could be multiple problems,
[00:14:02] right? Like we can
[00:14:03] Richard Reeves: we can have more than one problem. Yeah,
[00:14:04] David Sirota: Yes, we certainly do have more than one problem. So, let's go to what is...
[00:14:12] fueling this dynamic? Um, is it mostly the economic issues that you mentioned? Does it have to do with the changing nature of our culture? Is it something in our politics? When you look at all the data in, in the reporting that you did in your book, where do you come out with light on, on like, 2, 3, 4 really driving factors of this, um, all of these problems stack up as particularly or acutely problems in the male population.
[00:14:53] Richard Reeves: Well, the way I, I probably put it under three, three headings. Number one is the. Almost independently of everything else, the education system just isn't doing very well by lots of our boys and men now. And I think in some ways, decreasingly well. We have a 10 percentage point drop in the share of male teachers, incredible under investment in apprenticeships and vocational forms of learning, which everything else equal tend to be better for boys and men, and all kinds of changes in school environments that...
[00:15:25] Just mean that we're not, we're not serving very well. It's not to suggest of course that there aren't plenty of girls who aren't being served well too. But overall, education as a, just a problem in and of itself. Now that then means that more young men hit the labour market or college or whatever, just less well prepared as a result of the education system.
[00:15:45] So they come out of the education system less well prepared. Which is one of the reasons, by the way, that the single biggest risk factor for dropping out of college Controlling for everything else is being male. Which is one reason why many colleges aren't all that thrilled about, you know, they, they, they want men from a dropout point of view because men are much more likely to drop out than women, but that's predicted by what's happened in high school.
[00:16:08] So they struggle throughout education, they might struggle to land in the labor market. And then they, they, the second bucket is the labor market has been transformed in the last 40, 50 years in such a way as to make it much more difficult for men with modest levels of, of, of education to do okay. Okay.
[00:16:26] And we can have a very long, this is an area that I know you know a lot about, but like, as to why that is, globalization, de unionization, loss of all kinds of jobs, etc. It's not because women came into the labor market, it's because of these other external shocks to the labor market. So that's bucket number two, so that means men are kind of struggling in the labor market.
[00:16:46] And then bucket number three is... The, the most contentious one in a way, which is, the fact that women have seen such a massive increase in their economic independence means that the very basis upon which men and women form families and relationships has been significantly transformed. In the space of not much more than a generation, the kind of presumption of the male breadwinner has been largely unraveled, and in my view, good, great thing.
[00:17:17] However, I think that has left a lot of men struggling to catch up with a culture where their role as a breadwinner has first of all been undermined by economic brute facts, and then has been undermined by changes in their relationship to women, and they've come into it ill served as well. So you have under skilled men facing a labour market that's become a bit more hostile than the one their dads faced, and women who are saying, well, I might not need you.
[00:17:44] And I think all of those then feed off each other.
[00:17:46] David Sirota: And I think obviously, at least, I'm old enough to feel like, and I'm 47 years old, Gen X, I'm old enough to feel inside of that cultural transition in this way. I remember as a kid, the cultural messages of the single, uh, male breadwinner model you saw on TV, you saw, I mean, it just, you know, pervaded the culture and my life has, you know, sort of, uh, traversed the transformation of that.
[00:18:18] Those messages were baked in at at an early age, right? So you're taught one way. Hey, this is the way the world works. And then when the world doesn't work that way, you can imagine that that some, some, some guys don't don't adjust or have trouble figuring it out or don't want to adjust. Uh, so, so I guess that's a follow on question, which is how much of of what you've tracked about the, the the crises facing men, how much of it do you think is kind of, uh, transitory?
[00:18:52] In other words, a momentary crisis of a, of a culture in transition versus something that may end up being or that, that could end up being more permanent.
[00:19:04] Richard Reeves: Well I You've framed it perfectly in my view in terms of this cultural transition And the difficulties that that we face and I have changed my view on this quite significantly And and my change in view is really what's led me to be so deeply involved in this issues I used to have the view that it was a transition the There was this role for men.
[00:19:29] Inevitably that was going to change as a result of the women's movement and feminism. Good thing to, it was probably going to take a while for kind of men to get their head around this and start becoming stay at home dads more, doing more female roles. You know, there was, we're going to desegregate both ways.
[00:19:42] But it would take time, but it would happen. And if I'm
[00:19:45] David Sirota: Yeah, and you'd have, like, you know, you'd have, like, your old uncle who, like, can't adjust and is, like, cranky but, like, ultimately that would age out and we'd be in, like, a
[00:19:53] Richard Reeves: We'd all, we'd kind of get with the program and, and hon and, and, and honestly I think, and, and I think for those of us who had economic power, still that transition has been easier. I think equality here, I mean gender equality has been easier for the affluent because upper middle class men, are actually still doing pretty well, economically.
[00:20:15] And they're figuring out new ways to be in new relationships with their partners, which are much more egalitarian. Now, it doesn't mean that even, even we, I think I can say we in this context, don't have some adjusting to do. But by God, is it easier when you're coming into that with economic resources and skills and, and education.
[00:20:34] And if I'm being honest, I used to probably be quite judgmental. of the men who are struggling with the transition. I would, if not literally, then metaphorically be rolling my eyes at them, and saying, come on guys, just get with the program. Like, you know, yes, sorry, patriarchy's gone. You know, you
[00:20:51] David Sirota: Yeah, like, get over it.
[00:20:52] Richard Reeves: anymore.
[00:20:52] Get over, exactly, exactly, get over it, was exactly my thought process. And the more I looked at the data, and the more I looked at just how How fucking difficult it is for a lot of these guys to make this transition, especially those without economic power. The more I've realized that that is actually not a helpful framing.
[00:21:09] And I actually see, if anything, something of a growing backlash. I see to some extent a potential for going backwards on some of these issues. Because I think there's been too much eye rolling and too much get over it guys and not enough constructive. Compassionate help to men. We have basically folded our arms and said, Come on, get on, get over it.
[00:21:33] Yeah, feminism, good. You know, tough, tough shit, guys. Patriarchy's gone. But, meanwhile, yeah, sorry your jobs are gone. Yeah, sorry the education system sucks. And, you know, sorry that you don't really know what to do with yourself anymore. And, you know, sorry that masculinity itself seems to be a little bit of a contested idea anyway.
[00:21:48] But get over it. Get with the program. And that get with the program message has actually, I think, driven a lot of men the other way.
[00:21:56] David Sirota: I, I, listen, I, I agree with that and I would add one thing to it, which is that I think not only, um, does it create conditions for, um, But there are obviously opportunists who want to, uh, use those feelings of loss to, for their own political goals, right? I mean, the whole uh, uh, politics around masculinity to, to, Use the reality that you've laid out and then use it for a particular, uh, in my view, conservative right wing political agenda to, to foment those feelings of backlash, I think adds to the possibility that this isn't transitory, uh, that this is something that needs to be addressed because it could end up being systemic and, and permanent.
[00:22:43] So, so that gets to a topic that, that, that's, I think, really difficult to talk about. But I think is, is worth bringing into this conversation, which is so called wokeness. Now, I put that, that in air quotes because people define that all sort of differently, but, but I want to get at this question.
[00:23:04] And the question is. about the sense of lost privilege at play as politics and culture have been more attuned to righting historic wrongs with a big focus on empowering and celebrating gender, race, sexuality, identity. There was this scene in the um, TV show White Lotus, um, in which uh, the mother at one point, and the brilliance of that show is that you don't know, you're sort of supposed to laugh at it and eye roll it, but there's also a quasi bit of truth there, where this sort of affluent mother is talking to her daughters about their sort of disaffected son who, like, can't fit into the world, and she says something to the effect of, you know, it's not easy to be, like, a white male kid or a white male young adult coming into this world.
[00:23:54] And you're sort of, like, half eye rolling it because, like, you know, white men are not The oppressed, uh, uh, uh, minority. Uh, but there's also a, a bit of truth there. And I think the truth that it's trying to get at a little bit is the idea that we, in trying to right, historic wrongs and, and inequities, uh, gender, race, sexuality, uh, that, that there's sort of like being a white male is now a kind of cultural epithet.
[00:24:23] Uh, that, that the idea in our politics, in a lot of ways, a conversation ender can be, oh well, your position just proves that you're just a white man being evil because you're a white man. So I guess all of that is prefaced to get to the question of how much do you think the, uh, male malaise, the crises facing men have to do with Um, the perception that men are, uh, are portrayed as the problem, uh, that maleness, uh, masculinity is bad and, and that, that people are, are, are, are being judged based on their gender and ruled by the culture guilty, uh, before, uh, you know, before innocent.
[00:25:08] Richard Reeves: Let me start with a bargain that I would be willing to strike with anybody that's listening to this conversation, which is if we could agree to stop the use of the word toxic in relation to masculinity in exchange for stopping the use of the word woke. I think the world would be a lot better. How about we just agree to drop both those terms?
[00:25:32] Let's just, like, uh, because I think they're both incredibly unhelpful. And it does speak a bit to my answer, which is the, this is back to where you started about, two thoughts at once, not zero sum, which is, if there are real problems, that a group of people are facing, in this case, say, you know, men, right?
[00:25:54] Working class white men are the ones at the most risk of a death of despair, for example, or a suicide, right? And so in that case, just empirically, That's actually the group who are least privileged on that measure, right? Now it doesn't mean that there aren't other measures that go the other way, but when you're looking for patterns like that, um, it's important to point out where that's true.
[00:26:17] And failing to do that, failing to acknowledge the real problems that one group might have, doesn't actually make them more likely. To be invited into a conversation about the problems faced by another group. It makes them less likely So I I think that denying The by definition that you know boys and men are having could be having real problems or white Especially white men could be having real problems by denying that as a possibility in this zero sum way That actually doesn't recruit Men or what to the court to the progressive cause for other groups.
[00:26:57] It just makes them feel like oh, well at that case I've got to choose and I'm gonna look after myself and that does become a recruiting sergeant for the alt right for those who are saying You know what? You do have problems and they the mainstream etc. Don't care about those problems So come to me so problems that are not addressed become grievances And grievances are exploited.
[00:27:19] The way to stop them becoming grievances, in my view, is not to say, well, it's not, there's no problem. It's not to deny that there's a problem. It is to say, yes, there's a problem. And that's why all of us boring, responsible people are talking about it and doing something about it. If you don't address it, it becomes a grievance.
[00:27:36] And so I think in some ways, for understandable reasons, The cause of other historically disadvantaged groups is being ill served by a failure to acknowledge those problems that do exist for boys and men, including for white boys and men.
[00:27:52] David Sirota: And I completely agree. And having worked in the, um, in the Democratic primary in 2020 and having, having previously worked in Democratic campaigns, I mean, I can tell you, especially in 2020, that there was this undercurrent of If your talk, if you're speaking to the white working class or have a message even that sort of is inclusive of the white working class inside of a democratic primary environment, you run the risk of being accused of being insensitive to the Iniquities facing women, uh, racial minorities, religious minorities, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:28:32] It goes back to this zero sum idea. And I remember, I, look, I, everyone who's listening to this knows I worked for Bernie Sanders. And it was, it was a, it was kind of surprising, but also unsurprising that, that there, that the, the sort of the rise of, of identity politics has made it, um, more controversial to speak to these problems, even if they are, um, as you say. Empirical, right? I mean, these are problems, whether you want to, you know, not acknowledge them or not, I mean, they are problems, but that brings me to this part of this conversation I want to get to playing devil's advocate, because I want to hear your response to them. What would you say, for instance, to someone who says, listening to this conversation, hey, guys, under our current patriarchal society, Men are not the victims, even if everything you've just said is true.
[00:29:22] Men are not the victims. Overall, men still hold most, or at least much of the power, uh, including most of the economic and social advantages. Even if I, as a deviled advocate, um, stipulate all of the stats that you've said, The question of focus. Yes, they are problems, but we can't really as a society walk and chew gum and that most of the focus should be on the other iniquities, especially the historic iniquities that continue to be with us today.
[00:29:54] What do you say to that?
[00:29:55] Richard Reeves: Well, the first thing I would say is that many of those historic iniquities are based around ethnicity and race. And so I'm very concerned about what's happening to black boys and men, for example. And I have a significant amount of work going on that front. And so it seems pretty clear that on lots of different measures, if you take an intersectional approach, that actually black boys and men are significantly worse off in lots of empirical ways than black girls and women.
[00:30:22] Which is not the same as saying that all is rosy for black girls and women, but it is to say that if you're interested in certain issues like upward mobility, black women are as upwardly mobile as white women. But black men are not as upwardly mobile as white men, which is why, this is Raj Chetty's work, all of the black white gap in economic mobility is explained by men.
[00:30:45] All of it. Right, uh, and so like that's intersectionality applied in a serious way, which is if you're really worried about the black white gap on lots of these fronts, then you are required to worry about black boys and black men. So that's the first thing I would say, is that a lot of those historic disadvantages do intersect.
[00:31:06] Now as far as gender is concerned, Again, I think it just depends where you're looking and whether you're allowed to look in two places at once. So I've done a bit of work on the under representation of women in US politics. And this is something you know much more about than I do. But only 25% of members of Congress are women.
[00:31:25] Never a female president. Et cetera. I mean, the US is a real, real... bad case when it comes to gender representation in politics. Terrible. Um, venture capital money, only 3% of it goes to female founders. We still have boardrooms that are still strongly tilted. But there's been huge progress in boardrooms, by the way, which sometimes isn't acknowledged, but nonetheless much further to go.
[00:31:49] So is all of that true? Yes. Are those positions of power right at the apex of society still tilted very strongly male? Absolutely. Should we be doing things to address that? Absolutely. I actually suggested quotas around women in politics. I think it's because the representation is so important. Can it also be true that we have this massive crisis in suicide rates among our young men?
[00:32:14] Can it also be true that we have, uh, that only 60% of black boys graduate high school on time in Michigan? Can it also be true that male wages are stagnating? Can these things also be true? Yeah. So then if you're inviting me to say is it Is it more important that male wages are stagnating than that we don't have enough members of Congress who are female?
[00:32:34] I honestly don't know how to answer that question, because I refuse to choose. It just, I, I, I, I, anybody that tells me I have to choose, it seems to me, is the enemy. I'm not, I'm not playing that game, because I care about both.
[00:32:45] game, because I care about both.
[00:32:47] David Sirota: Well, and to be clear, I think a lot of people who are listening to this podcast are politically minded listeners. You can pretend this isn't a problem, but elections aren't going to pretend this is a problem. All you care about is elections? I mean, here's a stat. It's an incredible stat. Support for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 reached a new low among black men in the 2020 election.
[00:33:11] That's according to an NBC News poll. 80% of black men still supported Joe Biden, but that is down from Hillary Clinton and down from Barack Obama. So in other words, Donald Trump Made you know, I mean, it was, I guess, in the size of the country, not huge, but sort of over the course of elections and how, you know, elections go a very large shift in black male support to the Republican presidential candidate.
[00:33:38] And I bring that up only to say that even if you don't want to acknowledge this, this set of issues on its merits, if you care about just, you know, the outcome of elections. Uh, there, therein is something that you should, you should care about even if you don't care about, uh, sort of the individual issues that we're talking about.
[00:33:59] That it's clearly, that this, this issue is clearly being reflected in national elections. So the other devil's advocate question I want to ask is to go even further. What if it's something about maleness or the male American experience and population So, this comes up a lot in the discussion of, um, mass shooters.
[00:34:26] We don't see a lot of, if any, female mass shooters. We all know the basic profile of, uh, the male shooter. It's, you know, it's a, it's a young, typically white male. Uh, and there's an argument that it has something to do, that, that, that maleness, American maleness, uh, or masculinity as it's defined is the problem. Now, I know my feelings on this, but I'd like to hear your response to that.
[00:35:00] Richard Reeves: Well, I would be more convinced of that if I didn't see very similar trends. around the world, including, you know, the education trend. So Scandinavia, for example, has the biggest gender gaps in education. And this relates a bit to one of your earlier comments about identity. That's why Norway has now established a government commission on boys and men.
[00:35:19] You know, Norway, uh, and honestly I think one of the reasons that's not controversial in Norway is because nobody thinks the Norwegians hate women. Uh, or want to kind of roll back the tide on any of that gender stuff, but they are looking at it, they have a 20 point gap in college, college graduation rates in Norway.
[00:35:34] I mean, there's a lot of panic in the Scandinavian countries about what's, what's going on. Um, but I would say in terms of the, the male, so, so the difference between the US and other countries is the availability of guns. Honestly, to be very blunt about it, um, and so that does cause, like, that causes all kinds of problems.
[00:35:53] Um, now the mass shootings that you referred to are obviously hugely tragic, and quite rightly get lots of attention. And you're right, they're predominantly men. And in fact, men account for 95% of all violent crimes. across the board, in every country, every, in every period of human history. So, that shouldn't surprise us, and that does speak to some real differences between them.
[00:36:14] But also men take their, white men especially, take their own lives with guns. Uh, and so it is actually gun, gun driven suicides, and it's one of the reasons why the male suicide rate is so much higher. And so, there's an interaction here between the availability of weapons, of a
[00:36:30] David Sirota: But I want to, but I want to broaden it out and ask this question. Looking at that, is, can we surmise that something, I mean, frankly, physiological, biological, about masculinity and maleness is the problem? Or, is it a situation, or do you believe it's a situation, where all of the problems that you've laid out, all of the challenges that you've laid out, facing, uh, men?
[00:36:59] right now is expressed in these problems. In other words, all of the problems, the economic struggles, et cetera, et cetera, that men are facing, the outgrowth of that are, is everything from suicide rates to deaths of despair to mass shootings, et cetera, et cetera, on men. Like it's kind of a chicken or the egg question.
[00:37:19] Richard Reeves: Yeah, I, I, you've, you've ended in the right place, I think, which is how, how do you know is the chicken and egg problem? But, but I would say that I, I, I don't like to start any of these discussions with a prior that masculinity is the problem, which is, I think, what underpins some of the toxic masculinity debates, et cetera, like whatever term you want to use.
[00:37:40] And instead, I think, I think it's better to look at the data. See what's happening and then say, okay, so what's driving that? And then say, is that partly about what's happening around masculinity? So, for example, let's talk about crime, right? Men account for the overwhelming amount of violent crime. Men are more innately, and I'll use that word, innately predisposed towards being violent or being aggressive, right?
[00:38:06] That, that is just one of those facts which I really think you have to be deeply committed to the blank slate. Everything socialized view of human nature, given that it's always been true. But it's also true that until the last couple of years, violent crime rates had almost halved in the U. S. In just 30 years.
[00:38:25] It's also true that violent crime rates are much lower in some countries than in other countries that neighbor each other. So, is masculinity, are men violent? Are men more aggressive? Yeah. Is there anything pre determined about that? No. And in fact, culture is what determines the expression of that aggression or violence, or the non expression of it.
[00:38:50] So what frustrates me about a lot of these debates about masculinity, is it biological, is it cultural, etc. And here I'm going further and way beyond what you said, David, so I apologise, I'm like not answering that bit of it directly, but it's like, it's not that acknowledging there are natural differences makes culture less important.
[00:39:07] It makes it more important because culture determines how those things are Are expressed is it good or bad that men are on average more risk taking? Answer yes, it is good and it is bad and whether it's more good or bad will determine which activities we promote and which we don't
[00:39:26] David Sirota: So that's a great segue to, uh, to a discussion of the creation of culture. In the past several years, we've seen right wing politicians like Josh Hawley, uh, Ted Cruz, talk about the so called attack on masculinity. Uh, we've seen, you know, YouTubers whose entire business model seemed to be repackaging and selling, uh, uh, sort of, uh, one version of masculinity.
[00:39:55] We've seen gun marketing, I'm just pulling that out of a hat. uh, intertwined with all sorts of insane messages about masculinity, trying to kind of fuse self perception of masculinity with the idea of buying weapons, owning weapons, shooting weapons. Why do you think These messages have become so effective and, and the arguably more important question as part of this is what do you think would be a more constructive counter narrative and counter programming to those kinds of messages?
[00:40:34] Richard Reeves: I think they're effective because, firstly, they identify, and Hawley's a great example of this, um, they identify some real problems. So if you read some passages of what Hawley's, he has his own book and his own speech, actually I'm like, yeah, that's the same data that I've got.
[00:40:50] David Sirota: hmm.
[00:40:51] Richard Reeves: Yes, I'm with you so far, Senator.
[00:40:54] But then what he does is he says, yeah, these men are struggling, and you know why? And he doesn't say, because of what's happened to the economy, or because of what's happening elsewhere, he says, because of the left. Because the left is obsessed with toxic masculinity, and birthing people, and etc. The left hates masculinity.
[00:41:09] The left hates men. The left would rather have a world where we got rid of men. And he can find enough examples of some crazy stuff on the left to just, you know, it's a straw woman. That he creates in his, but he says it's feminism's fault, etc. And so if you're feeling pissed off, if you're struggling as a man, I hear you, it's their fault, vote for me.
[00:41:27] Do I have any policy prescriptions? No, because I'm a culture warrior, and so don't need, don't need to actually be able to do anything about that. But he's channeled it, and what he and what others do is that they successfully wrap together. these real anxieties that a lot of men feel, or women feel on behalf of the men in their lives, I should add, and says, yeah, and that's also about the Second Amendment.
[00:41:51] And that's also about Americanism. That's also about religion. And so it gets wrapped up into this sense of like, being a real Christian American white man, right? And, and masculinity, so Hawley says, it's the tip of the spear of the left's attack against America. I don't think that's even plausibly true, although I have lots of criticism of the left, but I know why he's doing that, because it's visceral.
[00:42:16] It gets to this really kind of, and then you can attach a bunch of other things to that visceral sense of your identity as a man being, um, being under attack. And by the way, that doesn't only work with Christian white men, although I've just mentioned them. You, you gave the stats about black men, and I was very struck by a poll which found that while half of American men now agree that Today, men are sometimes criticized just for acting like men, that's the quote, that's the quote in the survey.
[00:42:43] Black men are more likely to say that's true. And so, um, and just for a more positive response, it would be to say, we get it, here are a bunch of problems. So for example, would it be a terrible idea to have an office of men's health focused on issues around suicide and male mental health, and we have a lot, we have seven offices of women's health, I think that wouldn't be a bad thing.
[00:43:02] Would it be a good idea if CDC Recognize the suicide gap facing men and had some work around that. You know, at least a tri I don't think that would be a terrible idea. Would it be a terrible idea to have a recruitment drive for male teachers? We have a massive recruitment drive for women into STEM. And most recently, women into construction.
[00:43:19] I'm here for that. But what about the fact that we have, you know, just emptied out, not only education, but social work and psychology of men? Why not just do some of that you have an infrastructure bill, That will create jobs, largely for men, two thirds male. Two thirds of the jobs in the infrastructure bill will go to men.
[00:43:40] Actually, black men as much as white men, and Hispanic men a little bit more, because they're so represented in the construction industry. Don't hide from that fact, as the administration does when they're challenged on it. Own it. Make it a feature, not a bug. And just say, here are all the things we're doing on behalf of women.
[00:43:56] There's lots more to do for women. But you know what? The fact that this bill... is actually the first piece of legislation for a long time that will specifically help working class men of all races and ethnicities. I'm proud of that, as a democrat, because working class men have had it pretty rough. Um, for the last few years.
[00:44:13] Why not say that? And simple things like that, I believe, would take the wind out of the sails of the attack from the right. The silence on these issues from the left just creates this huge political opening for the right. And they're seizing it. Y'know, Josh Hawley is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
[00:44:30] David Sirota: Yeah, they are definitely seizing it, and as I said, I go back to those election results, I mean, Donald Trump increasing Republican margins among black men, they are definitely not only, the rhetoric is finding, uh, some more, um, a more receptive audience, because of, in part, the silence from the Democrats and the broader left.
[00:44:53] Okay, so... We've talked about the problems. You've mentioned a few solutions, um, in the political governmental realm. And I want to add one thing because we just had him on our podcast. We did have Senator Chris Murphy on our podcast, who, As far as I can tell, he's one of the few people who's talking about this, or at least adjacent to this, with his legislative proposals on loneliness.
[00:45:24] Uh, uh, I feel like a lot of what he's saying has to do with, with what you're talking about, you know, loneliness, disaffection, et cetera, et cetera. So I think at least there's one senator who seems to be thinking about it. But I guess beyond what you've laid out, is there anything else? That we need to be doing as a society.
[00:45:45] To address, uh, these problems, uh, uh, right now, the problems that you diagnose. Is there any one person or organization that you would point to that you would say, yeah, that is the right way forward, that, that is the path forward, that is a constructive uh, model to be replicated and expanded.
[00:46:04] Richard Reeves: Well, I'll start with some of these institutional and leadership roles. So, uh, Senator Murphy has been publicly talking about this. He's been kind about my book and said we cannot cede this ground to the right. I was just on the Surgeon General's podcast. Talking about male mental health, and he's very interested in these issues and leaning into it.
[00:46:21] And so, I think there are a number of people now who are realizing, for a mixture of political and policy, and perhaps personal reasons, that this is, this is not a space we can ignore any longer. And, in a sense, just need to talk about it in the right way. A congressional caucus on boys and men is not a terrible idea.
[00:46:39] I've already mentioned an office for men's health. Most states have a commission on women or a commission on women and girls focusing on the specific issues through that lens. Washington state Obviously a blue state is considering a commission on boys and men that's coming up for the next legislative session.
[00:46:55] I think that would be great and I can imagine other states would, would follow suit to go alongside the one existing one for women and girls. Not get rid of it. So there's some people on the right saying we should get rid of all these commissions. But I think a much more sensible approach is to do, to do, Both.
[00:47:10] And then in terms of actual policy, I've mentioned a couple of these in passing, but, but I do think a massive recruitment drive of male teachers is long overdue. When it's 23% and falling every year, I really start to worry you're at a tipping point where teaching just becomes something that fewer and fewer men want to do.
[00:47:26] David Sirota: No. And by the way, can I just add to that, uh, uh, just echo that, because look, I have a, you know, I, I have children. One of my children is a, is a boy. I, I think it's important, uh, for him to, he's got great teachers. Uh, a lot of women teachers, great, some men, teachers. I think it's good for kids. To see, uh, both genders, uh, in role model, uh, leadership roles at a young age.
[00:47:54] Richard Reeves: who, who said, look, you know, what do children, how do children learn about the roles of men and women? Well, In those early years, and especially in education, I mean, early years education is a male free zone. In fact, it's sort of between two and three percent of early years educators are male. And one of my stylized facts is that as a share of the occupation, there are only half as many men in kindergarten.
[00:48:18] As there are women flying U. S. military planes. So we have more female fighter, we have twice as many female fighter pilots as we do male kindergarten teachers. And I, look, I'm, again, I'm all here for female fighter pilots, the more, the more the merrier. I just actually just want the ones who are good at shooting down the other ones or whatever.
[00:48:34] But, but, but again, I think it's, it's, it's not good if we just see. And elementary schools, there are only one in ten there. And there's, you know, a number of elementary schools where there are no male teachers. So, and interestingly. I was just looking at the data on this recently. Whilst the share of male teachers in public schools has continued to decline, it's just started going up in private K 12 schools. That's interesting. That's early days, but I'm starting to think, are some of the men starting to vote with their feet? Or are those private schools starting to react a little bit to parental demand? They're starting to say, look, if you want your son, especially, to be in a place where there are male teachers.
[00:49:10] Male social workers, there are half as many as there were 20 years ago. Psychologists, half as many. Um, we've got to do something to reverse the trends in those directions. But also, the issue that you touched on a few minutes ago around fatherhood. I find it quite extraordinary that we've now given the military three months paid parental leave for mothers or fathers, or technically birthing or non birthing parents.
[00:49:34] But dads in the military get three months of leave? What about civilians? Like, what are the lessons there for the rest of the labour market? What message do we send to fathers when we don't give them time off to be with their kids? I mean, just like, and the fact that... I mean, Heather Boucher, who's in the Council of Economic Advisors, has written a lot about this, and the fact that our labour market institutions are so un reformed by comparison to the changes in our family life is extraordinary.
[00:50:04] Which, it's, it's unbelievable to me that now most families, if they have both parents, are both working. And the labour market continues to act. Almost like nothing happened. Right, so that, that, just the failure to just give more flexibility, more leave, etc. is just, uh, is huge and that has to be for dads as much as for mums.
[00:50:25] This, this message about fathers has been lost between a right that insists, of course dads matter if they're married. And a left that has sometimes, frankly, been a bit reluctant to talk about the importance of fathers. For fear of offending same sex parents, or saying single mums aren't doing a good job, or whatever.
[00:50:43] And, and that's just crazy talk, right? Dads do matter. And I think if we can't have that, we need a politics of fatherhood. And I think that would go a long way, actually, to addressing some of those concerns we had earlier. Because there's a lot of dads out there who see being a father as very important, and they don't hear enough from our leaders about that.
[00:50:59] David Sirota: Richard Reeves is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of the book called Of Boys and Men, why the Modern Male is Struggling, why it matters, and what to do about it. You can find his work@richardvreeves.com. Richard, thank you so much for taking the time with us today.
[00:51:17] Richard Reeves: Thank you, David. Great conversation.
[00:51:19] David Sirota: That's it for today's show. As a reminder, our paid subscribers who get lever time premium, you get to hear our interview earlier this week with economist Isabella Weber, one of the first economists to raise the alarm about profit driven inflation. To listen to Lever Time Premium, just head over to levernews. com to become a supporting subscriber. When you do, you get access to all of Lever's premium content, including our weekly newsletters and our live events. And that's all for just 8 a month or 70 for the year. One last favor. Please be sure to like, subscribe, and write a review for Lever Time on your favorite podcast app.
[00:51:56] The app you are listening to right now, take 10 seconds and give us a positive review in that app. And make sure to check out all of the incredible reporting our team has been doing over at levernews. com. Until next time, I'm David Sirota. Rock the boat.
[00:52:11] The Lever Time Podcast is a production of the Lever and the Lever Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, David Sirota. Our producer is Frank Capello with help from Lever producer, Jared Jacang Mayor.