What the hell is wrong with men? It’s a question researchers and, let’s face it, women, have been asking for decades. Their plight has received some serious attention. Books such as The War On Boys , The End of Men (And The Rise Of Women) , and Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It analyse what’s been happening to the male of the species over the past few decades.
They track the decline of manual jobs and the resulting economic disengagement of unskilled men. They discuss unclear social expectations of men and media tropes, including the “mere male” caricature of the incompetent man. And they examine the demoralisation of men who no longer know how to be in a society that celebrates them for having status but also condemns them for being status-driven.
They fret over what the Of Boys and Men author calls “the prospect of [men’s] cultural redundancy”. It’s tempting to scoff at Ken – indeed, it’s tempting to scoff at men who are, as a gender, still culturally dominant in some ways. These books were signposts along a path that has ended with many men wandering aimlessly in a social wilderness.
But the plight of men has also received a lot of derision. Men are obviously still very well represented in positions of power in society. Male-dominated professions tend to be higher paid.
There are more women in boardrooms now, but still not an equal number – we have about 40 per cent of board seats – and wom.